Anna Malikova is a pianist born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She received her first musical education there with Tamara Popovich.
She later studied in Moscow with Lev Naumov at the Central Music School and at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, from which she graduated in 1991. For several years she taught at the same conservatory.
Her career began in the former Soviet Union, where she appeared as a soloist in cities including Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Omsk, and Baku, and performed solo concerts with symphony orchestras of Yekaterinburg, Minsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, and Tashkent.
As a prizewinner of international piano competitions in Oslo, Warsaw (the Chopin Competition), and Sydney, Malikova began receiving more concert invitations in the West. In 1993 she won first prize at the ARD Competition in Munich, the only first prize awarded there over a period of twelve years, which firmly established her international reputation.
She has performed in solo recitals, chamber music ensembles, and as a soloist with symphony orchestras across Europe, South America, the Near and Middle East, and Asia. She has also appeared with ensembles such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Malikova has built an extensive discography. Her recordings include major works by Chopin as well as compositions by Schubert, Liszt, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Soler, released on the Russian label Classical Records. An important milestone was her complete recording of all five piano concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns with the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne under Thomas Sanderling, issued by the German label Audite; it quickly received international recognition and won the Classical Internet Award in January 2006.
Among her later recordings are works by Tchaikovsky, Brahms's Second Piano Concerto with the Duisburg Philharmonic under Jonathan Darlington, and, in 2015 for the centenary of Scriabin's death, a new recording of all ten piano sonatas released by Acousense. In autumn 2018 a chamber recording of the piano quintets by Shostakovich and Schumann, made with the Swiss Belenus Quartet, was issued. Her more recent work includes a live album of rare quartets for four pianos, released on CD in autumn 2022.
In addition to performing, she is frequently invited to serve on the juries of major international competitions, including competitions associated with Khachaturian, Chopin, Vianna da Motta, Gyeongnam, and Harbin. Since October 2018 she has been professor and head of a piano class at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.