Daniel Barenboim, KBE (born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-born pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings. Currently, he is general music director of La Scala in Milan, the Berlin State Opera, and the Staatskapelle Berlin; he previously served as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris.
Martha Argerich (born June 5, 1941) is a concert pianist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her aversion to the press and publicity has resulted in her remaining out of the limelight for most of her career. She has given relatively few interviews. As a result, she may not be as well known as other pianists of similar caliber. Despite this, she is widely recognized as one of the greatest piano virtuosos of our time.
Bruno Sanfilippo is a classically trained musician and composer who has been creating music for more than 20 years. His focus alternates between the exploration of minimalist piano concepts, and contemporary hybrids of electronic and acoustic music."His gift for picture music is the common thread running through it, his earlier works sounding more like soundtrack music and his later works moving into more ambient realms, though still with a strong sense of imagery" Te is obsessed with the search for new and unique qualities in music - the amazing, the magical and the deep.
Alexander von Schlippenbach (* 1938 in Berlin) is a German jazz pianist and composer.
Schlippenbach started to play piano from the age of 8 and went on to study composition at Cologne under Bernd Alois Zimmermann. While studying he started to play with Manfred Schoof. At the age of 28 he founded the Globe Unity Orchestra.
He produced various recordings and worked for German radio channels. He played with many essential players of the European free jazz community, most notably in the "Alexander von Schlippenbach Trio" with drummer Paul Lovens and saxophonist Evan Parker.
Denis Leonidovich Matsuev (born June 11, 1975) is a Russian pianist who won the first prize in the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1998 in Moscow. Matsuev has a phenomenal technique, and some consider him to be one of the greatest contemporary pianists.
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (sometimes transliterated Ashkenazi) (Russian: ????????? ?????????? ?????????) (born July 6, 1937) is a Russian conductor and, more notably, a pianist. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Ashkenazy began his studies at the age of 6 and showing prodigious talent, was accepted at the Central Music School at 8. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, he won second prize in the prestigious International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and shared first prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition with English pianist John Ogdon.
Valentina Lisitsa is a Ukrainian-born classical pianist. Born into a family of non-musicians in Kiev, Ukraine, she started playing piano at the age of three, performing her first solo recital only a year later. Despite her early disposition to music, her dream at that point was to become a professional chess player. She attended the Lysenko music school for Gifted Children and, later, Kiev Conservatory.
Elisabeth Leonskaja (b. November 23, 1945) is a Georgian pianist, born to a Russian family living in Tbilisi, then the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. She gave her first concert at the age of eleven. In 1964 she began studies in Moscow Conservatory under Jacob Milstein. During her conservatory years she won prizes in competitions in Bucharest, Brussels and Paris.
"Helge Lien, jazz pianist and composer, holds a master degree in music from the Norwegian Academy of Music, where Russian pianist Misha Alperin was an inspiring mentor and teacher of improvisation. The core of Lien