Evgeny Kissin

Evgeny Kissin was born in Moscow in 1971. 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, he made his concerto debut and gave his first solo recital in Moscow one year later. He came to international attention in March 1984 when, at the age of 12, 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.

Kissin’s first appearances outside Russia were in 1985 in Eastern Europe, his first tour of Japan in 1986, and in December 1988 he performed with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic in a New Year’s concert broadcast internationally. In 1990 he made his first appearance at the BBC Proms Concerts in London and, in the same year, made his North American debut, performing both Chopin piano concertos with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta.

During the 2018/19 season, Kissin gives solo recitals in Vancouver and San Francisco before embarking on an extensive tour of Asia which includes recitals in Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul, Yokohama, Tokyo and Osaka as well as a tour of Japan with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra under Mariss Jansons.