Irina Schnittke (née Kataeva) is a Russian and German pianist, born in Leningrad on November 14, 1940. She began studying music at the age of eight at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and continued her education at the Gnessin Institute in Moscow. Her teachers included Anna Shklovskaya, Yakov Flier, and Leonid Brumberg.
She specializes in the works of 20th-century Russian composers, including Sergei Prokofiev, Georgy Sviridov, Nikolai Slonimsky, Boris Tishchenko, Valery Gavrilin, and Anatoly Shalaev. Her husband, composer Alfred Schnittke, dedicated his Variations on a Chord and Piano Sonata No. 2 to her.
Schnittke performed many of her husband's chamber works with Mark Lubotsky and Mstislav Rostropovich. She toured the United States, Europe, and Australia with Gidon Kremer and the Kronos Quartet. From 1984, she formed a piano duo with Viktoria Postnikova. In 1994, she performed Alfred Schnittke's Violin Sonata No. 3 with Mark Lubotsky.
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