Evgeny Kissin

The Piano Prodigy

With his masterful strokes of the piano, musician Evgeny Kissin began bewitching audiences as an adolescent.

Evgeny Kissin was only two when he began to play and improvise at the piano. The early discovery of his talent caused quite a sensation with his family.

"I remember myself when I was about three and a half," he says. "I was sitting at our old Bechstein grand playing and singing something and my father was recording me with a huge machine and a giant microphone."

The young Evgeny entered the Moscow Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children at just six years of age. There he studied with Anna Pavlovna Kantor who was to remain his only teacher. Today she is still his mentor and has recently come to live with his family. "She is really a person of great integrity," says Kissin. "She helps me a great deal…and with the exception of some contemporary music we always explicitly agree on style and interpretation."

A slowly nurtured talent

Kissin was born in Moscow on Oct. 10, 1971. He attributes his smooth journey from child prodigy to mature musician to both his parents and teacher. "They would only let me play a few concerts a year," he says, "and they were very careful to make sure I was never exploited." Kissin stresses that neither his parents nor his teacher ever pushed him to perform -- if anything, they encouraged restraint.

Today Kissin is still careful not to overexert himself, and he limits the number of concerts he gives each year to around 40. "I find myself unable to play solo recitals with only one day in-between," he says. "I tried that several times and realized that one day was not enough for me to fill myself in again after emptying myself during a solo recital." But with orchestral concerts it's different, he says, because he has to play considerably less.

It was with Mozart's "Piano Concerto K. 466" that Kissin made his performing debut when he was only 10. At 11, he gave his first solo recital in Moscow. But the young pianist first came to international attention in 1984 when he performed the two Chopin concertos in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Orchestra of Ulyanovska.

Channeling Chopin

The music of Chopin has remained an important part of Kissin's repertoire. "Chopin's music has been very close to my heart ever since I was a child," he says. He believes the composer to be the greatest writer of music for the piano. "Especially for his time, in terms of piano technique, Chopin was a revolutionary," he says.

Kissin played both Chopin piano concertos again when he made his North American debut, this time with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta in Sept. 1990.

His Western European debut came in 1987 at the Berlin Festival, and in 1988 he toured Europe and debuted with the London Symphony Orchestra. Another highlight of the young pianist’s career came when he opened Carnegie Hall's centennial season with a spectacular debut recital. In 1997, Kissin made history by giving the first-ever solo recital at London’s renowned Proms concerts.

"I like the Proms very much," he says, "they were a very special event for me, so I always return with great pleasure."

Hard work pays off

Today, at just 31 years of age, Kissin stands at the forefront of the young generation of pianists. He appears regularly with conductors like Claudio Abbadio, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Daniel Barenboim.

He has been the recipient of musical awards and tributes from around the world and has accumulated numerous honors for his recordings, including the Edison Klassiek in The Netherlands and Diapason d'Or and the Grand Prix of La Nouvelle Academie du Disque in Paris. There have also been awards from music magazines throughout world, including the Classic CD magazine Award.