PIOTR ANDERSZEWSKI was born in Warsaw in 1969. He received the Gilmore Prize in 2002, the Szymanowski Prize in 1999, and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Best Instrumentalist Award in 2001. He has been the subject of two award-winning films by Bruno Monsaingeon.
EMANUEL AX was born in Lvov, Poland, in 1949 and moved to Winnipeg, Canada, while still a small boy. He won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv in 1974, followed by Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize. He records extensively and is considered one of the premier pianists of his time.
ALFRED BRENDEL, an Austrian pianist now residing in the United Kingdom, was born in Czechoslovakia in 1931. His performances, recordings, and writings have made him one of the most influential pianists of his generation.
YEFIM BRONFMAN, a pianist of exceptional power and musicality, was born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union in 1958. His family moved to the United States in 1973, where he studied with Rudolf Firkusny and Leon Fleisher. He has one of the busiest careers in the world.
BILL CHARLAP is one of the most active jazz pianists and recording artists of his generation. Born in New York City in 1966, he is the product of a musical family: His mother, Sandy Stewart, is a singer, and his father, Moose Charlap, was a Broadway composer.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY was one of France’s greatest composers.
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ, born in Kiev, was a legendary piano virtuoso, the most famous pianist of the twentieth century.
ALDOUS HUXLEY (1894–1963) was an English writer and cultural philosopher. Author of such classics as Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, he exerted a significant influence on the counterculture of the 1960s.
ILYA ITIN was born in Ekaterinburg, Russia, studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Lev Naumov, and currently resides in New York City. He won top prizes at the William Kapell Competition, the Casadesus Competition, and the Leeds International Piano Competition.
BILLY JOEL, born in 1949, is an American pianist, singer, and songwriter. He is a six-time Grammy Award winner who has sold over 100 million records worldwide.
WANDA LANDOWSKA (1879–1959) was born in Poland and became a French citizen. She was an extraordinary harpsichordist and played an important role in reviving the popularity of the instrument in the twentieth century.
YUNDI LI was the youngest pianist ever to win the International Frédéric Chopin Competition, in 2000, at the age of eighteen. Born in Chongquing, China, in 1982, he now resides in Hong Kong.
MIKE LIPSKIN, born in New York in 1942 and now transplanted to San Francisco, was a protégé of Willie “the Lion” Smith, and also studied with stride masters Luckey Roberts, Cliff Jackson, and Donald Lambert. For thirteen years he was a producer at RCA Records, where he worked on historical reissues as well as new albums by the likes of Gil Evans, Cedar Walton, and Duke Ellington.
MIKE LONGO, originally from Cincinnati, now lives in New York City. Born in 1939, he worked with jazz legend Julian “Cannonball” Adderley while still in his teens, studied with the great Oscar Peterson, and spent many years as a member of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s ensemble.
GABRIELA MONTERO, born in 1970 in Caracas, Venezuela, now lives in Massachusetts. She gave her first public performance at the age of five. Montero has always improvised, and despite reservations about whether doing so would detract from her classical career, this aspect of her talent has taken on increasing importance, due especially to the urging of her friend pianist Martha Argerich.
GARRICK OHLSSON in 1970 became the first American to win the International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He also won the Busoni Competition and the Montreal Piano Competition. He received Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Award in 1994.
MURRAY PERAHIA is an American pianist transplanted to London and Israel. He was the first North American to win the Leeds Piano Competition. After establishing a career with a series of Mozart recordings, he worked with Vladimir Horowitz in the 1980s at the older pianist’s invitation. His recordings of Bach have been especially stunning.
OSCAR PETERSON, the world-renowned Canadian jazz pianist, was called the “Maharaja of the Keyboard” by Duke Ellington.
MENAHEM PRESSLER, born in Magdeburg, Germany, is a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio and considered by many to be the preeminent chamber musician of our time. His list of awards would take up an entire book.
ANDRÁS SCHIFF, born in Budapest in 1953 and now living in Great Britain and Italy, is considered one of the greatest classical artists of his age. His recordings and performing legacy include the major works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Scarlatti, and Bartók.
ALDEN SKINNER spent many years with Yamaha Corporation of America before switching to the telecommunications industry. He is the digital-piano editor for Larry Fine’s Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer, an annual guide.
BILLY TAYLOR was known as the dean of American jazz. As house pianist at Birdland, he performed with such legends as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis, and became a protégé of Art Tatum. He worked in both television and radio to promote the art form he loved, and founded New York’s Jazzmobile, which still provides educational and concert programs in neighborhoods around the city.
ANDRÉ WATTS, born in Nuremberg, Germany, was introduced to a national audience when, at the age of sixteen, he played Liszt’s Piano Concerto no. 1 with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein on a televised Young People’s Concert. Three weeks later, Bernstein asked Mr. Watts to fill in for an ailing Glenn Gould. He is one of the most popular pianists on the concert circuit. He holds the Jack I. and Dora B. Hamlin Endowed Chair in Music at Indiana University.