Igor Levit

Igor Levit was named artist of the year at the 2020 Gramophone Awards, recording artist of the year by Musical America in 2021 and was the winner of the 2018 Gilmore Artist Award. In November 2020 he was nominated for a Grammy for best classical instrumental solo.

Igor Levit is artistic director of the Chamber Music Academy and the Standpunkte Chamber Music Festival at the Heidelberg Spring Festival. In spring 2019 he was appointed professor of piano at his alma mater, the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover.

His first complete recording of the Beethoven piano sonatas, released by Sony Classical in September 2019, immediately reached first place in the official classical music charts. Igor Levit presented cycles of Beethoven’s entire piano sonatas at the Salzburg, Lucerne and Berlin Music Festivals, as well as at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and Wigmore Hall. Igor Levit’s most recent album was released in autumn 2021 by Sony Classical: a complete recording of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues op. 87, also including Ronald Stevenson’s Passacaglia on DSCH.

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.

Concerts in the 2021/22 season have taken Igor Levit to Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris and Vienna. In 2022 he gave the world premieres of two works written for him: at Carnegie Hall in January he performed Fred Hersch’s Variations on a Folksong, and at the Heidelberg Spring Festival in April he performed William Bolcom’s Second Piano Concerto with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Elim Chan. In spring 2021 the Lucerne Festival announced a long-term collaboration with Igor Levit as part of a new piano festival, which he will curate from spring 2023.

Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1987, Igor Levit moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight. He completed his piano studies in Hanover, gaining the highest marks in the history of the institute. In 2019 he was awarded the Fifth International Beethoven Prize for his political commitment. This was followed in January 2020 by the award of Statue B of the International Auschwitz Committee on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In autumn 2020, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his commitment to the fight against anti-Semitism and for his streamed house concerts during the Corona Lockdown.

In Berlin, where he makes his home, Igor Levit plays a Steinway Model D grand piano, which was kindly given to him by the Trustees of Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells.