Kissing pianist biography

“He remains one of today’s most highly regarded pianists for the intensity and sensitivity of his interpretations” The New York Times

Pianist Evgeny Kissin is one of the most distinguished musicians of his generation, revered the world over by audiences and critics alike for the virtuosity and eloquence of his pianism and the imagination and insight of his interpretations. In a special tribute written to accompany a recital given at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr in June at which the pianist was awarded with the Festival Prize, German critic Wolfram Goertz praised the “spectacular seriousness” of Kissin’s approach, and noted that, the enormous care with which he prepares works for performance notwithstanding, “what is so compelling about his artistry is that it retains its immediacy”. Appropriate acclaim for an artist always in high demand by the world’s leading orchestras and conductors of the calibre of Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa and

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Program: Pianist Evgeny Kissin at 50

"When I die, bury me in the region around Moscow, in the forest, and let the stone, under which my remains will lie, be barely visible in the grass, and it should [read] HERE LIES EVGENY KISSIN, SON OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, A SERVANT OF MUSIC."

Pianist Evgeny Kissin wrote this extraordinary epitaph for himself when he was still a young boy. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he is acutely conscious of his place in history. He sees his life as a continuum of the virtuoso school of Russian pianists he heard as a child on the radio: Richter, Gilels, Rubinstein, Horowitz and especially Van Cliburn, his mother's favourite, and as a Jewish artist.

As a boy in Moscow he taught himself Yiddish, the complex ancient language of the Ashkenazi Jews spoken bygd his maternal grand-parents. He performs Yiddish poetry including some of his own, and publicly champions Israel whose citizenship he accepted in  

Just a handful of classical music in

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Biography

"ALL THE HALL MARKS OF HIS GENIUS - AND ONE DOES NOT USE THE WORD LIGHTLY - WERE ON DISPLAY: THE RICH, SONOROUS TONE, THE DAZZLING FINGERWORK AND, ABOVE ALL, THE INSPIRED FANTASY. SO COMPELLING IS KISSIN'S PIANISM, SO FRESH HIS RESPONSE TO EVEN THE MOST FAMILIAR PHRASES, THAT ONE HANGS ON EVERY NOTE. THE END OF THE SLOW MOVEMENT FOUND ME GRIPPING THE ARMREST OF MY SEAT, MESMERIZED BY THE POETRY OF HIS READING."

The Times, 10th May

Evgeny Kissin was born in Moscow in October and began to play by ear and improvise on the piano at the age of two. At six years old, he entered a special school for gifted children, the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, where he was a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor, who has remained his only teacher. At the age of ten, he made his concerto debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. and gave his first solo recital in Moscow one year later. He came to international attention in March when, at the age of twelve, he perfo