Elisabeth Leonskaja (b. November 23, 1945) is a Georgian pianist, born to a Russian family living in Tbilisi, then the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. She gave her first concert at the age of eleven. In 1964 she began studies in Moscow Conservatory under Jacob Milstein. During her conservatory years she won prizes in competitions in Bucharest, Brussels and Paris.
Valentina Lisitsa is a Ukrainian-born classical pianist. Born into a family of non-musicians in Kiev, Ukraine, she started playing piano at the age of three, performing her first solo recital only a year later. Despite her early disposition to music, her dream at that point was to become a professional chess player. She attended the Lysenko music school for Gifted Children and, later, Kiev Conservatory.
Daniel Barenboim, KBE (born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-born pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings. Currently, he is general music director of La Scala in Milan, the Berlin State Opera, and the Staatskapelle Berlin; he previously served as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris.
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin(Александр Николаевич Скрябин) (1872-1915, Moscow) was a Russian composer and pianist. Many of Scriabin's works are written for the piano; the earliest pieces resemble Frédéric Chopin and include music in many forms that Chopin himself employed, such as the etude, the prelude and the mazurka. Later works, however, are strikingly original, employing very unusual harmonies and textures.
Krystian Zimerman (born December 5, 1956) is a Polish classical pianist. He was born in Zabrze and studied at the Katowice Conservatory under Andrzej Jasinski. His career was launched when he won the prestigious Warsaw International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in 1975. He performed with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan in 1976 and he made his American début with the New York Philharmonic in 1979. He has toured widely and made a number of recordings. Since 1996 he has taught piano at the Academy of Music in Basel.
Richard Goode (born June 1, 1943) is an American classical pianist, known especially for his interpretations of Ludwig van Beethoven and chamber music. Goode was born in East Bronx, New York. He studied piano with Elvira Szigeti, Claude Frank, Nadia Reisenberg, Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski (the latter two at the Curtis Institute). He won numerous prizes, including First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition and the Avery Fisher Prize.
The French pianist, Alexandre Tharaud, graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris and started his international career in earnest when he won the 2nd Prize at the ARD Competition in Munich. As a soloist, Alexandre Tharaud has appeared with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, Orchestre National de France...
Lise de la Salle, born in 1988, gave her first concert at the age of nine, at Radio France. After winning many competitions in France, at the age of twelve she was awarded First Prize at the seventh Ettlingen International Competition in Germany. She was appointed to a bursary from the Fondation d'Entreprise Groupe Banque Populaire-Natexis, and won in rapid succession the first prizes of the Young Concert Artists European Auditions held in Paris in October 2003, and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York in January 2004.
Arcadi Volodos (Russian: Аркадий Володось, Arcadij Volodos) (born February 24, 1972) is a Russian pianist. His first name is sometimes transliterated Arcady or Arkady. Volodos is renowned for his technical mastery of the instrument's virtuosic repertoire; particularly that of Rachmaninoff, Liszt and his recordings of transcriptions by Vladimir Horowitz.
Born in Leningrad in 1972, he began his musical training studying voice, following the example of his parents, who were singers, and later shifted his emphasis to conducting while a student at the Capilla M.
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (sometimes transliterated Ashkenazi) (Russian: ????????? ?????????? ?????????) (born July 6, 1937) is a Russian conductor and, more notably, a pianist. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Ashkenazy began his studies at the age of 6 and showing prodigious talent, was accepted at the Central Music School at 8. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, he won second prize in the prestigious International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and shared first prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition with English pianist John Ogdon.