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Igor Levit
Citizen.
European.
Pianist.

Biography
“Igor Levit Is Like No Other Pianist”
Highlights

With an alert and critical mind, he places his art in the context of social events and understands it as inseparably linked to them. The New York Times describes Igor Levit as one of the “most important artists of his generation”. Igor Levit is Musical America’s “Recording Artist of the Year 2020” and the 2018 Gilmore Artist. In June 2022 his Album “On DSCH” has been awarded the “Recording of the Year” Award as well as the Instrumental Award of the BBC Music Magazine.
As a recitalist Igor Levit regularly performs at the world’s most renowned concert halls and festivals. He is regular soloist with the world’s leading orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic. Igor Levit opened the 2022 Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival together with Alan Gilbert and the NDR Elbphilharmonieorchester followed by recitals at the Salzburger Festspiele and the Lucerne Festival as well as concerts with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Sir Antonio Pappano at the Musikfest Berlin and at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. In the 2022-23 season Igor Levit presents his new recital program featuring works by Brahms, Hersch, Liszt and Wagner among others in Berlin, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Milano, New York, Paris, Prague and Rome. Igor Levit is one of Vienna’s Musikverein’s portrait artists of the 2022-23 season. In June 2023 he joins the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen for a multi-week residency. In spring 2021 Igor Levit and the Lucerne Festival announced a multi-year collaboration for a new piano festival curated by Igor Levit, its first edition to take place in May 2023. With the 2022-23 season, Igor Levit joins the Festival Heidelberger Frühling music festival as its Co-Artistic Director.
Life

Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Igor Levit moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight. He completed his piano studies in Hannover with the highest score in the history of the institute. His teachers included Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Matti Raekallio, Bernd Goetzke, Lajos Rovatkay and Hans Leygraf. Igor Levit was the youngest participant in the 2005 International Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, where he won silver, the special prize for chamber music, the audience prize and the special prize for the best performance of contemporary pieces. In spring 2019 he was appointed professor for piano at his alma mater, the University of Music, Theatre and Media Hanover. For his political commitment Igor Levit has been awarded the 5th International Beethoven Prize in 2019 followed by the award of the “Statue B” of the International Auschwitz Committee in January 2020. His 53 Twitter-streamed live house concerts during the lockdown in spring 2020 garnered a worldwide audience, offering a sense of community and hope in a time of isolation and desperation. In October 2020 Igor Levit was recognized with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In Berlin, where he makes his home, Igor Levit is playing on a Steinway D Grand Piano kindly given to him by the Trustees of Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells.
Calendar
Lucerne Festival
Recital
KKL Luzern
Johannes Brahms (arr. Ferruccio Busoni): 6 Choral Preludes BV B 50
Fred Hersch: Adventures on Gold Mountain (written for Igor Levit, world premiere at Carnegie Hall in January 2022)
Richard Wagner (arr. Zoltán Kocsis): Prelude from Tristan and Isolde, WWV 90
Franz Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178
Salzburger Festspiele
Recital
Großes Festspielhaus
Béla Bartók: Im Freien – Fünf Klavierstücke Sz 81
Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82
Richard Wagner: Vorspiel zu Tristan und Isolde WWV 90 (Bearbeitung für Klavier von Zoltán Kocsis)
Franz Liszt: Sonate für Klavier h-Moll
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
With Antonio Pappano
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
Ferruccio Busoni: Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 (BV 247)
Philharmonie Berlin
Ferruccio Busoni: Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 (BV 247)
Cleveland Orchestra
With Franz Welser-Möst
Grosser Saal, Musikverein
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 C major, KV 467
Alte Oper Frankfurt
Duo with Markus Hinterhäuser
Grosser Saal
Olivier Messiaen: Visions de l’Amen
“Yesterday’s concert at Carnegie Hall has been one of the most intense experiences of my life. No idea why and when these moments happen. But it is of no importance. They just happen and that’s all what matters. Sharing these experiences is the single most wonderful thing of my life.”
Discography

Tristan
