Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (Влади́мир Дави́дович Ашкена́зи, Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazi; born 6 July 1937) is a Russian solo pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor.

He won second prize in the V International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and the first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels in 1956.

In 1961, he married the Iceland-born Þórunn Jóhannsdóttir, who studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory.

To marry Ashkenazy, Þórunn was forced to give up her Icelandic citizenship and declare that she wanted to live in the USSR.

Her name is usually transliterated as "Thorunn"; her nickname is Dódý, so she is called Dódý Ashkenazy.

After numerous bureaucratic procedures, the Soviet authorities agreed to allow the Ashkenazys to visit the West for musical performances and for visits to his parents-in-law with their first grandson.

In his memoirs, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev recollected that Ashkenazy on a visit to London had refused to return to the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev mentioned that Ashkenazy then sought advice from the Soviet Embassy in London, who in turn referred the matter to Moscow.

Khrushchev said he was of the opinion that to require Ashkenazy to return to the USSR would have made him an "Anti-Soviet".

He further said that this was a good example of an artist being able to come and go in and out of the USSR freely, which Ashkenazy said was a gross "distortion of the truth".

He shared the first prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition with British pianist John Ogdon.

As a student, like many in that period, he was harassed by the KGB to become an "informer".

In 1963, Ashkenazy decided to leave the USSR permanently, establishing residence in London, where his wife's parents lived.

The couple moved to Iceland in 1968 where, in 1972, Ashkenazy became an Icelandic citizen.

In 1970 he helped to found the Reykjavík Arts Festival, of which he remains Honorary President.

Born in the Soviet Union, he has held Icelandic citizenship since 1972 and has been a resident of Switzerland since 1978.

Ashkenazy has collaborated with well-known orchestras and soloists.

In addition, he has recorded a large repertoire of classical and romantic works.

His recordings have earned him five Grammy awards and Iceland's Order of the Falcon.

Vladimir Ashkenazy was born in Gorky, Soviet Union (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russia), to pianist and composer David Ashkenazi and to actress Yevstolia Grigorievna (born Plotnova).

His father was Jewish and his mother came from a Russian Orthodox family.

Ashkenazy was christened in a Russian Orthodox church.

He began playing piano at the age of six and was accepted to the Central Music School at age eight, studying with Anaida Sumbatyan.

Ashkenazy attended the Moscow Conservatory where he studied with Lev Oborin and Boris Zemliansky.

In 1978 the couple and their (then) four children (Vladimir Stefan, Nadia Liza, Dimitri Thor, and Sonia Edda) moved to Lucerne, Switzerland.

Their fifth child, Alexandra Inga, was born in 1979.

In Europe, Ashkenazy was principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1987 to 1994, and of the Czech Philharmonic from 1998 to 2003.

Ashkenazy is also conductor laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra.

Beginning in 1989, Ashkenazy resided in Meggen, Switzerland, on Lake Lucerne.

His eldest son Vladimir, who uses his nickname 'Vovka' as a stage name, is a pianist, as well as a teacher at the Imola International Piano Academy.

His second son, Dimitri, is a clarinetist.

In July 2013 he became director of the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale di Imola, succeeding its founder and director Franco Scala.

The Guardian wrote in 2018 that Ashkenazy conducted pieces by Prokofiev and Glière as if he had been "born to do it" during a concert series that explored the musical response to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, including composer Alexander Mosolov's Iron Foundry (1927) and the suite from The Red Poppy, a ballet with music by Glière.

Ashkenazy has recorded a wide range of piano repertoire, both solo works and concerti.

His recordings include:

His concerto recordings include:

In public piano performances, Ashkenazy was known for rejecting a tie and button shirt in favor of a white turtleneck and for running (not walking) onstage and offstage.

He has also performed and recorded chamber music.

Moreover, Ashkenazy has had an acclaimed collaborative career, including an acclaimed recording of Beethoven's complete violin sonatas with Itzhak Perlman, as well as the cello sonatas with Lynn Harrell, and the piano trios with Harrell and Perlman.

Midway through his international pianistic career, Ashkenazy branched into conducting.