Mikhail Pletnev is a Soviet and Russian pianist, composer, and conductor, born on April 14, 1957, in Arkhangelsk. He was born into a musical family: his father, Vasily Pletnev, was a bayan player and teacher, and his mother, Olga Pletneva, was a pianist and accompanist. After his birth, the family moved first to Saratov and then to Kazan.
From the age of seven, he studied at the music school attached to the Kazan Conservatory with K. A. Shashkina, and later at the Central Music School of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Yevgeny Timakin. In 1973 he became a prize-winner at the International Youth Piano Competition in Paris. From 1974 to 1979 he studied at the Moscow Conservatory, first in the class of Professor Yakov Flier and then with Professor Lev Vlasenko. In 1977 he won first prize at the All-Union Pianists' Competition in Leningrad.
After winning the sixth International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978, his concert career developed intensively. He was accepted as a soloist by the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic. He performed throughout the world in solo programs and with major orchestras of Europe and America, including the philharmonic orchestras of Berlin, London, Israel, Munich, and the Czech Republic, and worked under conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Kurt Sanderling, and Neeme Jarvi.
In 1980 he made his debut as a conductor, and in 1981 he completed postgraduate studies under Lev Vlasenko. In 1990 he founded and led the Russian National Orchestra. He also appeared as a guest conductor with leading ensembles, including the philharmonic orchestras of London, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. Since 1996 he has lived in Switzerland.
Pletnev is regarded as one of the world's finest interpreters of Tchaikovsky's music. As a pianist, he recorded works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Modest Mussorgsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Frédéric Chopin. As a conductor, he recorded works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Taneyev, Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Rodion Shchedrin. His piano transcriptions of excerpts from three Tchaikovsky ballets also became well known.
His own compositions include a Piano Quintet, the orchestral Triptych, a Capriccio for piano and orchestra, Classical Symphony, a Viola Concerto, Variations on a Theme by Rachmaninoff, Adagio for five double basses, Fantasia Helvetica for two pianos and orchestra, a Sonata for cello and piano, a Jazz Suite for symphony orchestra, and a Tatar Rhapsody for bayan and symphony orchestra.
Among his distinctions are the State Prize of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, State Prizes of the Russian Federation, the title People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, a Grammy Award, the Triumph independent award, the European Cultural Prize, and several classes of the Order For Merit to the Fatherland. In 2006 he became a member of the Council for Culture and Art under the President of the Russian Federation, and in the same year the Mikhail Pletnev Foundation for the Support of National Culture was established. In 2007 he served as production conductor for Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades at the Bolshoi Theatre and also took part in the annual Crescendo international festival. From 2008 to 2010 he was principal guest conductor of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.
Connections
This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.