Arkady Sevidov is a Soviet and Russian pianist. He was born on November 8, 1947, in Isetskoye, Tyumen Oblast. He began studying at a music school in Yelets at the age of eight, then attended the Central Music School from 1961 to 1966, where he studied with N. A. Lyubomudrova. In 1972, he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where Lev Oborin was his principal teacher, with Boris Zemlyansky and Eliso Virsaladze as assistants; he then entered its postgraduate assistantship program.
Sevidov won first prize at the 1969 All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians and fourth prize at the 1970 International Tchaikovsky Competition. From 1974 to 1978, he worked as an assistant in the Moscow Conservatory’s special piano department. That same year, he began touring as a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic, performing in the Soviet Union and abroad, including in Bulgaria, India, Greece, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Cuba, Mongolia, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, the United States, and Japan.
His repertoire includes works by Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Chopin, and Schumann. He made numerous radio recordings and recorded solo and chamber music for Melodiya. His recordings include Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, Children’s Album, Grand Sonata, Dumka, and piano concertos; Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; and Scriabin’s First Sonata and Piano Concerto.
From 1978, Sevidov worked at the Gnessin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute and the Central Music School. He became a professor in the Moscow Conservatory’s special piano department in 1999 and continued working there under professors Mikhail Voskresensky and Viktor Merzhanov. His students include Nikolai Kozhin, Nikita Galaktionov, and Chinese pianist Lu Chao. His honors include the titles of Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1986) and People's Artist of the Russian Federation (1998), the Irina Arkhipova Foundation Prize (2001), and the Moscow Prize (2001).