The pianist Igor Levit was named artist of the year at the 2020 Gramophone Classical Music Awards, recording artist of the year by Musical America in 2020 and was the winner of the 2018 Gilmore Artist Award. In 2022 his album ON DSCH was named BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Recording of the Year’ and also received the magazine’s Instrumental Award.
Igor Levit is co-artistic director of the international festival Heidelberg Spring, and launched the Piano Festival of the Lucerne Festival, which takes place for the second time in May 2024.
Igor Levit regularly gives recitals at the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals. He is a frequent guest with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic.
In 2023/24 he gives recitals at the Vienna Musikverein, the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall in New York, London’s Wigmore Hall, and in Milan, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, Montréal and Toronto. His appearances with orchestra include a Bartók cycle with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, a European tour with the Vienna Philharmonic, tours with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Berliner Barock Solisten. He also presents trio and duo evenings with Markus Becker, Renaud Capuçon and Julia Hagen at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, and in Berlin, London, Munich, Vienna and Salzburg.
In 2019 Igor Levit was awarded the International Beethoven Prize for his political commitment. This was followed in 2020 by the award of the Statue ‘to B remembered‘ from the International Auschwitz Committee as well as of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
He completed his piano studies at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover, gaining the highest marks in the history of the institute. In 2019 he was appointed professor of piano at his alma mater.
In Berlin, where he makes his home, he plays a Steinway Model D grand piano, which was kindly given to him by the Trustees of Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells.
