Andrei Gavrilov

The pianist ANDREI GAVRILOV (1955) was born into a family of artists in Moscow. His father,Vladimir Gavrilov, is one of the eminent Russian artists, and his mother, Assanetta Eguiserian, was a pianist. At the age of 6, the future musician was inducted at the Moscow Central Music School and became a student of Tatyana Kestner, and at the Moscow Conservatory his teacher was Lev Naumov. In 1974, the talented 18-year-old student won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In the same year he made a triumphant international dèbut at the Salzburg Festival where he substituted for the ill Sviatoslav Richter. Subsequently, the two became friends, performing together with Handel's piano suites in Russia and abroad, there is a documentary recording of their performance at the festival in Tours. At the age of 23, Gavrilov made his first tour with the Berliner Philharmoniker with 30 concerts in major cities around the world. A year later, while preparing for the next tour with Herbert von Karajan, he was banned from performing abroad. The rebellious musician, who was hailed by critics as a "rising star in the piano sky," a "virtuoso who conquered the world," was overthrown by the Soviet regime. Gavrilov was put under mandatory house arrest under the constant supervision of the KGB and at times he was committed to psychiatric wards. And the worst thing for any artist – there was an unspoken ban on concerts. In 1985, he managed to leave the Soviet Union on tour around Britain and decided not to return. He hid for a while with the help of English special services. The issue of his free movement around the world was resolved with the approval of Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev. He retained his Soviet citizenship and was the first Soviet artist to succeed freely outside the USSR at the beginning of Perestroika. He is now a citizen of three other countries – Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland. Andrei Gavrilov resumes his international career with concerts in prestigious recordings such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elisabeth Hall in London. He has since performed with renown orchestras and conductors including Sir Neville Marriner, Evgeni Svetlanov, Bernard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazi, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa… He has recorded for EMI and Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Melodiya, and in recent years he has released records under his private label. His repertoire includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti and Handel, the Viennese classics - Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Grieg, the Russian masters - Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Balakirev, Stravinsky, composers of the 20th century - Ravel, Berg, Shostakovich, Hindemith, Britten, Schnittke. Andrey Gavrilov's interpretations provoke discussions as he is a thinking musician who works extremely deeply with the musical text. In the period 1994-2001 he experienced a mental crisis, stopped his concert activities and lived in solitude on the island of Fiji. After that he settled in Switzerland and resumed concertizing. He incorporates new insights into the works he performs. In 2011 he published his autobiographical book "Andrei, Fira and Pitch: Scenes from a Musician's Life".