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Leif Ove Andsnes
Piano
Leif Ove Andsnes, an internationally acclaimed piano star for the last 15 years, was named “the most accomplished pianist of the new generation” by the New York Times, and has been called “an eminently sensual musician, an artist capable of grace and introspection” by the Financial Times.
In addition to giving recitals and playing concertos each season in the world’s leading concert halls and with the all the foremost orchestras, Andsnes is an avid chamber musician who joins select colleagues each summer at Norway’s Risør Festival of Chamber Music, of which he is co-artistic director. The New Yorker has called the pianist “one of the intimidating few who possess power and personality in equal measure.”
Andsnes is a frequent guest at such leading summer festivals as Aspen, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Verbier, and New York’s Mostly Mozart, and he has performed at the celebrated Last Night of the Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall. New York’s Carnegie Hall presented Andsnes as a Perspectives artist in seven concerts during the 2004-05 season, making him the youngest performer to be so honored. He has been the subject of several television programs, including England’s South Bank Show.
Leif Ove Andsnes has received Norway’s most distinguished honor, Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. In 2007, he received the prestigious Peer Gynt Prize, awarded by members of parliament to honor prominent Norwegians for their achievements in politics, sports, and culture. Andsnes has also received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award, the Gilmore Artist Award, three Gramophone Awards , most recently for his Grieg and Schumann Piano Concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons, and numerous Grammy nominations. Saluting his many achievements, Vanity Fair named Andsnes one of the “Best of the Best” in 2005.
Andsnes was born in Karmøy, Norway, in 1970 and studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory under the renowned Czech professor Jiri Hlinka. Over the past decade he has also received invaluable advice from the Belgian piano teacher Jacques de Tiège, who, like Hlinka, has greatly influenced his style and philosophy of playing. Andsnes cites Dinu Lipatti, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Sviatoslav Richter, and Géza Anda among the pianists who have most inspired him. Andsnes currently lives in Copenhagen and Bergen, and also spends much time at his mountain home in Norway’s western Hardanger area. He is a professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
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