Evgeny Kissin’s musicality, the depth and poetic quality of his interpretations, and his extraordinary virtuosity have earned him the admiration deserved only by one of the most gifted classical pianists of his generation.
He is in demand the world over, and has appeared with many of the world’s great conductors, including Abbado, Ashkenazy, Barenboim, Dohnanyi, Giulini, Karajan, Levine, and more, as well as all the great orchestras of the world.
Mr. Kissin was born in Moscow in October 1971 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 been his only teacher.
At the age of ten, Kissin made his concerto debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 466 and gave his first solo recital in Moscow one year later. He came to international attention in March 1984 when, at the age of twelve, he performed Chopin’s Piano Concertos 1 and 2 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow State Philharmonic under Dmitri Kitaenko.
Listen now to Evgeny Kissin perform at age 13:
