Konstantin Lifschitz(Piano), The Art of J.S. Bach

Konstantin Lifschitz was born 1976, in Kharkov. At age five he enrolled in the Moscow Gnessin Special Middle School of Music, studying with Tatiana Zelikman. In future years of studies in Russia, England and Italy his teachers also included Theodor Gutmann, Vladimir Tropp, Hamish Milne, Alfred Brendel, Fou T’song, Leon Fleisher, Rosalyn Tureck, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel and Charles Rosen.
In the early 1990s the Russian Culture Foundation awarded him a scholarship. The “New Names’ programme brought him to the attention of Vladimir Spivakov, who immediately arranged for Konstantin to perform as soloist with the Moscow Virtuosi in Moscow and on tour in Japan. Following this journey, he was invited by Spivakov to Monte Carlo.
At 13, Konstantin presented a landmark recital in Moscow. The capacity crowd responded with an overwhelming enthusiasm that even back then established him as a major artist. In 1994 Konstantin Lifschitz presented his graduation recital from the Gnessin School – his program commenced with Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Denon Nippon Columbia recorded the 17-year-old in this deeply felt interpretation of his beloved Bach. The recording, when released in 1996, was nominated for a Grammy Award and moved critic Edward Rothstein of The New York Times to acclaim Lifschitz’s performance “the most powerful pianistic interpretation since Glenn Gould’s.”.
Konstantin gives recitals and concerto performances in almost all the important Musical metropoles of the world – Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Milan,Amsterdam, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tel-Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, Vienna etc.
He played as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the London Symphony and the New Japan Philharmonic under Maestro Mstislav Rostropovich, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner, Tokyo Symphony, the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony under Lu Jia, Russian State Orchestra under Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Orchestra della RAI under Jeffrey Tate, I Solisti Veneti under Claudio Scimone, the the Danish National Radio Orchestra under Christopher Hogwood, the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi and Mark Gorenstein, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as well as the Berlin Symphony under Eliahu Inbal, the EUYO under Bernard Haitink, the San Francisco Symphony under Sir Roger Norrington, the Berlin Radio Orchestra under Marek Janowski and Mikhail Jurowsky, and the St.Petersburg Philharmonic under Yuri Temirkanov to name some.
Konstantin Lifschitz is also a dedicated chamber Musician, performing with major artists including Gidon Kremer, Maxim Vengerov, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Misha Maisky, Mstislav Rostropovich,Eugene Ugorski, Daishin Kashimoto, Valery Afanassiev, Natalia Gutman, Joerg Widmann and others.
In the recent time Konstantin Lifschitz is starting to be more and more requested as a conductor. He conducts, amongst others, orchestras such as the Moscow Virtuosi, Musica Viva (Moscow), and I solisti di Napoli etc
Konstantin Lifschitz made several recordings for the label Orfeo which contain Bach Musical Offering (released 2007), Gottfried von Einem Piano Concerto with the Austrian Radio and Television Orchestra Vienna under Claudius Meister (2009), Brahms Concerto Nr 2 with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under D. Fischer-Dieskau (2010), Bach Art of the Fugue-the work (released in October 2010), and 7 Bach Concertos for one keyboard and orchestra with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducting that group from piano (released 2011). In 2008 VAI company released his live-performance of the Bach WTC I&II from the Miami International Piano Festival.
In 2002/2003 K. Lifschitz was appointed an Associate/a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music London. Since 2008 he has his own class at the Hochschule Musik in Lucerne. He gives master-classes around the world and takes part in different educational programmes.