Evgeny Kissin: biography, personal life, family, creativity, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Evgeny Kissin is a high-class virtuoso pianist known all over the world. This is a musical prodigy of the 80s of the twentieth century. His career as a performing musician began in the Soviet Union. Today he is a British and Israeli citizen and lives in New York. His concert tours are held with great success in European countries and the USA. He rarely comes to Russia. Evgeny Kissin's biography is the life story of a musical genius.

Childhood

Kissin Evgeny was born on October 10, 1971 in a Jewish family. His father, Igor Borisovich Otman, was an engineer, and his mother, Emilia Aronovna Kisina, was a piano teacher at a children's music school. The bright musical abilities of little Zhenya manifested themselves very early. When his older sister played the piano, the baby repeated the musical fragments she was learning with her voice. By the age of two, he was already playing on his own.piano.

Is it easy to be a teacher of a miracle child?

From the age of six, Eugene began studying at the Gnessin Music School. Anna Pavlovna Kantor became his first and only teacher. According to her recollections, when Zhenya was brought to school, he could already play everything, but he absolutely knew neither musical literacy, nor the rules necessary for playing the piano. A novice student amazed his teacher with unusual musical data, the ability to improvise, and the vividness of his imagination. According to the memoirs of Anna Kantor, at first she was in some confusion: how to teach this child the necessary knowledge, how not to suppress his unbridled giftedness with dry demands. Thanks to experience, tact and pedagogical flair, Kantor managed to bring up a real great pianist from a talented boy.

Name change

Relationships with peers in the boy prodigy did not develop too smoothly. So that the son could avoid ridicule, the parents decided to change his surname Otman to the maternal surname Kisin, more familiar to the Russian language. In the family, the boy always found understanding and support.

First successes

The extraordinary natural talent of the student and the high professionalism of the teacher quickly began to give their results. The training of the young pianist proceeded at a rapid pace. Every year he left his peers far behind. At the age of 10, he performed for the first time with the Ulyanovsk Symphony Orchestra,performing Mozart's 20th concerto. A year later, he is already giving a solo concert.

His performance at the Great Concert Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Kitaenko was a resounding success and became a real sensation. Chopin's first and second concertos Yevgeny Kissin performed brilliantly. The young performer was 12 years old. According to the memoirs of Anna Kantor, Kissin was looking forward to his appearance on stage with great impatience. He really wanted to start performing his concert program as soon as possible. Since then, the boy has become a famous concert pianist. Prominent figures of Soviet musical culture began to take part in his fate.

Foreign Tours

Since 1985, the young pianist has been giving concerts outside the Soviet Union. First in Eastern Europe, then, in 1986, in Japan. In 1987 he made his debut in Western Europe at the Berlin Festival. In 1988 he made a concert tour with the Moscow Virtuosos under the direction of Vladimir Spivakov. In the same year, at the New Year's concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Evgeny Kissin performed Tchaikovsky's First Concerto with Herbert von Karajan.

In autumn 1990 Yevgeny Kissin made his debut concert in the USA. Here he played with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Zubin Mehta. A week later, the pianist gives a solo concert at Carnegie Hall.

Trial of Glory

The talent of the young musician was so bright that from earlyKissin's childhood was in the center of attention of professional musicians and the public. They talked a lot about him, wrote in the press, compared him with other talented performers. In this regard, in childhood, the boy had many problems in communicating with his peers, since envy was almost always present here. But Eugene always behaved impeccably both on stage and in life. He cannot be reproached with excessive attention to himself, narcissism, which is characteristic of young talents who have come to success early. The pianist was distinguished by modesty and correctness. He always follows the rules of good manners in art.

Later, having already become an experienced concert pianist, Kissin notes in an interview that fame deprives a person of freedom and imposes a huge responsibility on him.

On top of success

In 1995, Evgeny Kissin was named the youngest best instrumentalist of the year in the USA.

In August 1997 he had a recital at London's Albert Hall at the Proms festival.

The famous pianist leads an active concert activity, performing in the best halls with the world's leading orchestras under the baton of renowned conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, Evgeny Svetlanov, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim, Yuri Temirkanov and many others.

Pianist citizenship

At the very beginning of the 90s of the twentieth century, the Kisin family emigrated. Since 1991, Kissin has been living in New York, Paris, London.

In 1997, five years after emigration, Kissin came toRussia to receive the Triumph award. It became one of the highlights of his life.

In 2002, the pianist became a citizen of Great Britain. At the end of 2013, he received Israeli citizenship.

Currently Evgeny Kissin lives in Prague.

Personal life of a musician

Evgeny Kissin does not like to talk about the details of his personal life. In the interviews he gives, the pianist avoids talking about his relationships with women. Therefore, the personal life of Yevgeny Kisin was hidden from prying eyes, thereby giving rise to many different rumors.

He has not been married long enough. But in the spring of 2017, fans of his talent were surprised - at the age of 46, the eminent pianist finally got married. The wife of Yevgeny Kissin was a childhood friend Karina Arzumanova. She has previously been married and has three sons. The wedding celebrations were held in Prague, where the bride lives.

Kissin today

Unlike many miracle children who, as adults, lost their extraordinary gift, Kissin managed not only to maintain his extraordinary talent, but also to increase it.

Evgeny Kissin is a pianist who has never participated in a performance competition in his life. However, he is the winner of many awards, including the D. D. Shostakovich Prize, the Herbert von Karajan Prize, the Russian Triumph Prize, the Grammy Award in the Best Solo Instrumental Performance with Orchestra nomination for performing the second and third piano concertos by S. S. Prokofiev. It is currently fullcreative plans and quite satisfied with life. He is doing what he loves. His life is quite measured and all scheduled for several years ahead: after all, he is in demand as a performer. He gives 40-45 concerts a year. They are still sold out. The audience is delighted with his performance skills.

In his work there is a place for the chamber-instrumental genre. Sometimes he enjoys performing in chamber ensembles with Yuri Bashmet, Natalia Gutman, Vladimir Spivakov and other remarkable performers. He also plays four hands and two pianos with famous pianists Martha Argerich, James Levine and others. But due to the busy schedule of concert performances and rehearsals of famous musicians, such line-ups are quite rare.

Besides music, he has another hobby - he reads poetry in Yiddish and Russian, performing poetry evenings.

In the ranking of the world's best pianists, Kissin takes second place after the Argentinean pianist Martha Argerich, leaving behind all famous and successful pianists of Russian origin (for example, Vladimir Ashkenazy takes 8th position, Nikolai Lugansky - 16th, Daniil Trifonov - 21st, Mikhail Pletnev - 23, Denis Matsuev - 36, etc.)