With an alert and critical mind, Igor Levit 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”, the New Yorker as a pianist “like no other”. Since the 2022-23 season, Igor Levit is the Co-Artistic Director of the Heidelberger Frühling Musikfestival. With the Lucerne Festival he initiated the Piano Fest in 2023.

In the 2025/26 season Igor Levit performs in recital at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, La Fenice Venice, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Paris, Palau de la Música Barcelona as well as in Luxembourg, Milano and Tokyo among others. In fall of 2025, he presents four concerts to mark the Shostakovich memorial year 2025 at the Musikverein Wien. With five recital and chamber music performances, he helps to celebrate Wigmore Hall’s 125th anniversary season 2025/26. To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence in 2026, he presents Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli Variations’ and Frederic Rzewski’s ‘The People United’ for New York’s Carnegie Hall and Washington Performing Arts in early 2026. With the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer Igor Levit performs all Prokofiev concertos at the Philharmonie Berlin. Further highlights of Igor Levits orchestral season are performances of the monumental piano concerto of Ferruccio Busoni with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a Europe Tour with the Orchestra dell‘Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Daniel Harding as well as concerts with the Tonhalleorchester Zürich and Paavo Järvi, the Vienna Philharmonic and Adam Fischer and the Staatskapelle Berlin and Christian Thielemann.

Igor Levit’s recordings for Sony Classical have been honored with countless awards, including four Opus Klassik Awards, Gramophone‘s „Artist of the Year 2020”-Award, Musical America’s “Recording Artist of the Year 2020 as well as the „Recording of the Year“-Award and the Instrumental Award of the BBC Music Magazine. His latest album, a live recording of the acclaimed piano concertos of Johannes Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Christian Thielemann, has been awarded the Opus Klassik 2025 in the category ‘Concert Recording of the Year’.

Together with performance artist Marina Abramović, Igor Levit presented a 13-hour performance of Erik Satie’s ‘Vexations’ at London’s Southbank Centre in spring 2025 – 10 years earlier, the two had already performed Bach’s Goldberg Variations together at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. In spring 2021 Hanser published Igor Levit’s first book “House Concert”, co-authored by Florian Zinnecker followed in Fall 2022 by the release of the feature documentary “Igor Levit – No Fear” in cinemas and on DVD.

Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Igor Levit moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight. Igor Levit 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. In spring 2019 he was appointed professor for piano at his alma mater, the University of Music, Theatre and Media Hanover.

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 2018 Igor Levit has been named the eighth recipient of the prestigious “Gilmore Artist Award” – conferred only every four years to a classical pianist and recognized as the largest and one of the world’s most distinguished music awards.

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. His 53 Twitter-streamed live house concerts during the lockdown in spring 2020 garnered a worldwide audience, offering a sense of community and hope in a time of isolation and desperation. In October 2020 Igor Levit was recognized with the Order 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.

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[Revised 24 July 2025. Please disregard any pre-existing biographical information. Thank you.]