Elisabeth Leonskaja (UK/IRL representation)

UK & Ireland representation, in collaboration with EAS Musikmanagement, Berlin

Elisabeth Leonskaja has long been among the most celebrated pianists of our times. Born into a Russian family in Tbilisi, she gave her first concerts at the age of eleven. While still a student at the Moscow Conservatory, she won prizes at major international piano competitions, including the Enescu Prize, the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Her musical development was decisively influenced by her collaboration with Sviatoslav Richter who recognized her exceptional talent and encouraged her by inviting her to play duo concerts with him. This musical and personal friendship continued until Richter’s death in 1997.

Leonskaja left the Soviet Union in 1978 and made Vienna her home. Since then, she has performed as soloist with the world’s finest orchestras and conductors. A regular guest at numerous international festivals, her name is also to be found in the most prominent piano series of major musical centres of the world from Paris to Vienna to Melbourne. In addition to her many solo engagements, chamber music remains an important part of her work. She has performed many times with string quartets, such as the Belcea, Borodin Artemis and Jerusalem quartets. She also had a longstanding musical friendship with the Alban Berg Quartet, and their piano quintet recordings are legendary.

Numerous LPs and CDs bear witness to the pianist’s high artistic level, and her recordings have repeatedly been awarded prizes. After a series of critically successful recordings over a number of years on the eaSonus label, she has since 2020 been recording again for Warner with whom she recorded a complete Mozart Sonata cycle, released in 2022.

In her second homeland, Austria, Elisabeth Leonskaja is an honorary member of the Vienna Konzerthaus. In 2006 she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class, for her outstanding service to the culture of the country. It is the highest award in Austria. In Georgia, she was named Priestess of Art in 2016, this country’s highest artistic honour. In 2020 she received the International Classical Music (ICMA) Lifetime Achievement Award.

Links

Artist’s website
http://www.leonskaja.com/
EAS Musikmanagemnt (Elisabeth Leonskaja’s General Management)
http://www.eas-musikmanagement.de/