Valery Borisovich Vasiliev was a Soviet and Russian pianist born on 21 November 1927. He became known as a distinguished concert performer and was later honored as a Merited Artist of the RSFSR in 1965.
He studied piano under Heinrich Neuhaus and Pavel Serebryakov, two major representatives of the Russian piano tradition. From 1950 he taught at the special music school affiliated with the Leningrad Conservatory, later known as the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Secondary Special Music School in Saint Petersburg.
From 1951 Vasiliev was an artist of the Leningrad Philharmonic, and from 1957 he also worked with Lenconcert. He toured abroad and built a reputation as a prominent pianist, especially associated with the virtuoso repertory of Franz Liszt.
Among his competition achievements were first prize at the International Competition of Performing Musicians in Prague in 1950 and laureateship at the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Budapest in 1956. He was remembered as an outstanding representative of the Soviet and Russian pianistic school, and among his pupils were Sofia Yalysheva and Pavel Egorov.
Vasiliev died on 3 June 2001 in Saint Petersburg.