Igor Levit, Wiener Philharmoniker & Christian Thielemann
Biography Igor Levit, Wiener Philharmoniker & Christian Thielemann
Igor Levit
With an alert and critical mind, he places his art in the context of social events and understands it as inseparably linked to them. The New York Times describes Igor Levit as one of the “most important artists of his generation”. Igor Levit is Musical America’s “Recording Artist of the Year 2020” and the 2018 Gilmore Artist. In November 2020 he was nominated for a Grammy in the category “Best Classical Instrumental Solo“.
As a recitalist Igor Levit regularly performs at the world’s most renowned concert halls and festivals. He is regular soloist with the world’s leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic. Performing with the Vienna Philharmonic at their iconic Summer Night Concert Schönbrunn in June 2021, Igor Levit’s upcoming schedule includes concerts in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris and Tokyo. In spring 2021 Igor Levit and the Lucerne Festival announced a multi-year collaboration for a new piano festival curated by Igor Levit starting in 2023.
An exclusive recording artist for Sony Classical, Igor Levit’s 2019 highly-acclaimed first recording of the 32 Beethoven-Sonatas was awarded the Gramophone „Artist of the Year“ Award as well as the Opus Klassik in autumn 2020. His next album “Encounter” followed in September 2020. Recorded during the lockdown in spring 2020 it is a deeply personal album marked by a desire for human encounter and togetherness. The program includes rarely played arrangements of Bach and Brahms by Ferruccio Busoni and Max Reger, as well as Palais de Mari – Morton Feldman’s final work for piano. Igor Levit’s next release is a double album featuring Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 and Ronald Stevenson’s Passacaglia on DSCH. The artwork has been specially created for this album by the internationally renowned artist and graphic designer Christoph Niemann, who regularly illustrates for the New Yorker and The New York Times.
Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Igor Levit moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight. He completed his piano studies in Hannover with the highest score in the history of the institute. His teachers included Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Matti Raekallio, Bernd Goetzke, Lajos Rovatkay and Hans Leygraf. Igor Levit was the youngest participant in the 2005 International Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, where he won silver, the special prize for chamber music, the audience prize and the special prize for the best performance of contemporary pieces. In spring 2019 he was appointed professor for piano at his alma mater, the University of Music, Theatre and Media Hanover. Igor Levit is the Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Academy and of the Festival “Standpunkte” at the Heidelberg Spring Festival.
For his political commitment Igor Levit has been awarded the 5th International Beethoven Prize in 2019 followed by the award of the “Statue B” of the International Auschwitz Committee in January 2020. In October 2020 Igor Levit was recognized with the Oder of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In Berlin, where he makes his home, Igor Levit is playing on a Steinway D Grand Piano kindly given to him by the Trustees of Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells.
Daniel Harding
made his professional conducting debut in 1994 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, serving as assistant to Sir Simon Rattle that season. The following season, he served as assistant to Claudio Abbado with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mr Harding holds the positions of music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (since 2007), artistic director of the Anima Mundi Festival in Pisa, Italy, and conductor laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Between 2016 and 2019 he was music director of the Orchestre de Paris. Harding makes regular guest appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, the Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Maestro Harding has led opera productions at La Scala in Milan, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Royal Opera in London, the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera. The French government has bestowed upon him the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2002 and named him Officier in 2017.
Since his first performance with the Concertgebouworkest in January 2004, Daniel Harding has returned to the Concertgebouworkest many times, conducting it at The Concertgebouw and on various tours. He led the orchestra in several programmes during a tour of the USA in February 2019. Mr Harding returned in August 2019 for performances in Amsterdam and Lucerne of Act II from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and in November 2020 for concert streams with works by Schubert, Stravinsky, Britten and Messiaen.
