Igor Levit is the 2018 Gilmore Artist and Royal Philharmonic Society’s “Instrumentalist of the Year” 2018.

In October 2018 Sony Classical released Igor Levit’s highly anticipated fourth album for the label: “Life” – featuring works by Bach, Busoni, Bill Evans. Liszt, Wagner, Rzewski and Schumann. Igor Levit is touring the program this season, amongst others at New York’s Carnegie Hall, at San Francisco Performances, the Lucerne Piano Festival, Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation and at the Berlin Philharmonie. Further recital appearances see him perform in Vienna, Hamburg, Munich, Antwerp, Liège and Dresden. Spring 2019 will mark his Paris and Tokyo recital debuts followed by three recital evenings at Wigmore Hall.

After his debuts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia Festival and the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival in summer 2018, orchestral debuts in the 2018-19 include appearances with the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Filarmonica della Scala and Leipzig’s Gewandhausorchester. He returns to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Pittsburgh Symphony and joins the Vienna Philharmonic on tour which also comprises his highly anticipated New York orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall in March 2019.

Highlights of past seasons included debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orkest, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker, Staatskapelle Dresden, Cleveland Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra as well as the 2017 Opening Night of the prestigious BBC Proms alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner and a tour of Asia with the Bavarian State Orchestra conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

An exclusive recording artist for Sony Classical, Igor Levit’s debut disc of the five last Beethoven Sonatas won the BBC Music Magazine Newcomer of the Year 2014 Award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award 2014. In October 2015, Sony Classical released Igor Levit’s third solo album in cooperation with the Festival Heidelberger Frühling featuring Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, which has been awarded the “Recording of the Year” and “Instrumental Award” at the 2016 Gramophone Classical Music Awards.

Born in Nizhni Nowgorod in 1987, Igor Levit moved to Germany with his family at age eight. He completed his piano studies at Hannover Academy of Music, Theatre and Media in 2009 with the highest academic and performance scores in the history of the institute. Igor Levit has studied under the tutelage of Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Matti Raekallio, Bernd Goetze, Lajos Rovatkay and Hans Leygraf. As the youngest participant in 2005 Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, Igor Levit won the Silver Prize, as well as the Prize for Best Performer of Chamber Music, the Audience Favorite Prize and the Prize for Best Performer of Contemporary Music.

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.