Legendary pianist Evgeny Kissin sounds off on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the uniting power of music.
The internationally renowned artist shares thoughts on the war and his love of performing in advance of his forthcoming Vancouver concert
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PIANO LEGEND EVGENY KISSIN was just 11 months old when, according to his family, he was able to sing by ear the theme of Bach's A major Fugue from the second book of the Well-tempered Clavier, which his sister was learning to play at the time. His mother was a piano teacher, and music filled his childhood home in Moscow.
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"From that moment on, I began to play by ear everything I heard my sister and my mother's students play, [everything] from LPs and the radio," Kissin tells Stir. "Then, when I was two years and two months old and tall enough to reach the piano keyboard while standing on the floor, I started playing everything by ear and improvising my music. Of course, I can't remember myself at that time. To this day, playing the piano is as natural to me as eating, drinking or making love.
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Stir caught up with the revered artist - recognised as one of the greatest pianists of all time - via email, at his request, between stops on a tour that includes visiting Canada's west coast. The exchange covers Kissin's career highlights, his upcoming performance here (his fourth with the Vancouver Recital Society), and the war in Ukraine.
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Kissin, a passionate performer known for evoking deep emotions in audiences and who's also a composer, was six when he entered Moscow's Gnessin School of Music, a school for gifted children, and 10 when the prodigy made his concerto debut playing Mozart's Piano Concerto K466. He went on to perform in the world's greatest concert halls and won numerous awards.
Two key moments in his illustrious professional life stand out for him.
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"The first highlight of my career was my debut on 27 March 1984," says Kissin. "I played both Chopin concertos one evening in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under Dmitry Kitaenko. This concert was recorded live, and thanks to this recording, my name and playing became known to musicians in different countries.
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"The other major highlight was when I played Tchaikovsky's First Concerto with the legendary Herbert von Karajan at the New Year's Concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on 31 December 1988," he says. "This concert was broadcast live on television, making my name known to many music lovers worldwide.
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Kissin was a special guest at the 1992 Grammy Awards, which were broadcast to over a billion viewers and was named Musical America's youngest instrumentalist of the year in 1995. Two years later, Kissin was awarded the Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russian culture, one of the highest cultural honours in the Russian Republic. He holds an honorary doctorate of music from the Manhattan School of Music.
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He is an honorary doctor of the University of Hong Kong, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Ben-Gurion University of Beer Sheba. Kissin became an Israeli citizen in 2013; after living in London and New York, he now resides in Prague with Karina Arzumanov, whom he married in 2017.
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Kissin has chosen several works for his current tour, including Tausig's arrangement of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565; Mozart's Adagio in B Minor, KV 540; Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110. Then there are selected mazurkas, Chopin's Andante Spianato, and Grande Polonaise brillante, Op. 22.
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"I chose this programme not for Vancouver but for the 2021/22 season," says Kissin. "I always play the same programme in every concert season. I don't like describing music in words because music is higher than words. I hope they [the audience] share my love for the music I play. By playing for other people, I'm sharing with them the music I love - and my passion for it.
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"Music is a universal language, as long as there are no artificial borders created for it (like, for example, in the Soviet Union in the late years of Stalin's regime for Western music of that time)," he says. "It easily crosses all other borders. As for politics, the fact is that [having] different political views doesn't prevent people from enjoying the same music.
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Politics are impossible to ignore at the moment, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine showing no signs of ending. On 27 February, just three days after the war began, Kissin condemned Russia's attack in a video posted on social media. He is one of the "musicians worldwide" speaking out and joining the #StandWithUkraine movement.
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As Stir reported at the time, Vancouver Recital Society artistic director Leila Getz sent a message to subscribers in early March, saying the organisation had decided to keep the revered artist on its spring schedule while making the heartbreaking decision to cancel a performance by Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev in August.
"We at the VRS cannot in good conscience present a concert by a Russian artist at this time unless they are prepared to speak out publicly against this war," said Getz.
Legendary pianist Evgeny Kissin sounds off on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the uniting power of music
The internationally renowned artist shares thoughts on the war and his love of performing in advance of his forthcoming Vancouver concert
https://www.createastir.ca/articles/vancouver-recital-society-evgeny-kissin
Evgeny Kissin
https://luck-on.com/2023/10/10/kissin-2/
Evgeny Kissin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1z663qksiQ
Yevgeny Kissin was born in 1971 in Moscow, Russia, which was still in the Soviet Union. This young pianist has been called "the most amazing piano genius in the second half of the 20th century." He is a non-commercial pianist. In 2002, Kissin became a British citizen.
Evgeny Kissin - Wikipedia
Evgeny Kissin (born 10 October 1971) is a Russian, British and Israeli pianist and composer. In recent years, he has increasingly written in his native language, Evgeni.
Short biography
He was born into a Jewish family in Moscow. He began piano lessons at the age of two. He later attended the Gnessin School of Music and continued his studies with Anna Pavlovna-Cantor. He made his debut playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 (KV 466) at ten and gave his first recital at 11, demonstrating his child-prodigy abilities from an early age. At the age of 12, Chopin's Piano Concerto, which he performed with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under Dmitry Kitaenko, was published and attracted worldwide attention.
Since then, he has performed with many famous orchestras and conductors, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, Abbado, Karajan and Ozawa.
Although he has never studied with a famous teacher and has rarely won a competition, he continues to perform as an international pianist and actively records music worldwide. In 1986, she visited Japan for the first time and toured the country. She returned to Japan in 2003. Both were well received. She made her American debut at Carnegie Hall on 30 September 1990. His performance that day received rave reviews and was released on CD, further cementing his worldwide fame.
As a boy, he composed, performed and recorded piano music. He has resumed collecting since the 2000s, often performing the "Toccata" and "Dodecaphonic Tango" from Op. 1 of his first published "Four Piano Pieces" as part of his concert repertoire.
During the Soviet era, he sometimes arranged folk songs worldwide as encores after recitals. An album of arrangements of Japanese Ministry of Education songs was made, but these are currently difficult to obtain.
Although he was born in the former Soviet Union, he is a dual national, having acquired British citizenship in 2002 and Israeli citizenship in 2013.
