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Denis Kozhukhin was launched onto the international scene after winning First Prize in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels at the age of 23. His playing is characterised by an extraordinary technical mastery balanced by a sharp intelligence, calm maturity and wisdom. Kozhukhin has that rare and special gift of creating an immediate and compelling emotional connection with his audience. 

Kozhukhin has quickly established a formidable reputation and has already appeared at many of the world’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls including the Verbier Festival, where he won the Prix d’Honneur in 2003, Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Rheingau Music Festival, Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, Santander International Festival, Carnegie Hall, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Herkulessaal, Rotterdam De Doelen, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Auditorio Nacional Madrid, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Milan, Palau de la Musica Valencia, Théâtre du Châtelet and Auditorium du Louvre Paris. 
In the 2014/15 season, Kozhukhin makes his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Morlot, Philadelphia Orchestra/Denève, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo, Mariinsky Orchestra/Gergiev, Houston Symphony Orchestra/Hrusa, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic/Gimeno and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo/Alsop. Kozhukhin will also tour to China with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. 

The 2013/14 season included performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony with Alsop, Philharmonia with Temirkanov, Oslo Philharmonic with Hrusa, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse with Kristjan Järvi, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony with Sinaisky, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with Payare, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic with Gulberg-Jensen, Hallé with Ryan Wigglesworth, BBC Scottish Symphony with Dausgaard and Orchestre National de Belgique with Boreyko. In February 2014, Kozhukhin was Temirkanov’s soloist on his major US tour with the St Petersburg Philharmonic which included performances at the Carnegie Hall and Davies Hall, San Francisco. 
As a recitalist, highlights of this season and beyond include returns to the Concertgebouw’s Master Pianists Series, Cologne Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Auditorium du Louvre in Paris and London’s International Piano Series, as well as debuts at the Lucerne Festival, Berlin Staatsoper, Pianos aux Jacobins, Flagey and Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon. Following the 2013 release of his debut recording with Onyx Classics of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas Nos 6, 7 and 8, Kozhukhin will release his recording of Haydn Sonatas in September 2014. 

Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, in 1986 into a family of musicians, Denis Kozhukhin began his piano studies at the age of four with his mother. As a boy, he attended the Balakirev School of Music where he studied under Natalia Fish. From 2000 to 2007, Kozhukhin was a pupil at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid learning with Dimitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez-Mehner. 

Upon graduating, he received his diploma personally from the Queen of Spain and was named best student in his year and twice best chamber group with his own Cervantes Trio. After his studies in Madrid, Kozhukhin was invited to study at the Piano Academy at Lake Como where he received tuition from amongst others Fou Ts’ong, Stanislav Yudenitch, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, Charles Rosen and Andreas Staier. He completed his studies with Kirill Gerstein in Stuttgart. Kozhukhin has also been awarded 1st Prize at the Vendome Prize in Lisbon in 2009, and 3rd Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006. 

Kozhukhin is a committed chamber musician and has worked with amongst others, Leonidas Kavakos, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Vadim Repin, Julian Rachlin, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Pavel Haas Quartet, Radovan Vlatkovic, Jörg Widmann and Alisa Weilerstein.

Boris #Berezovsky has established a great reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician gifted with a unique insight and a great sensitivity.

Born in Moscow, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. Subsequent to his London debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power. Two years later, he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 International Tchaïkovsky Competition in Moscow.

Boris Berezovsky is regularly invited by the most prominent orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Philharmonia of London, Orchestra Santa Cecilia Roma, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and more.

Boris Berezovsky is often invited to the most prestigious international recitals series: The Berlin Philharmonic Piano serie, Concertgebouw International piano serie and the Royal Festival Hall Internatinal Piano series in London, to the great stages as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Royal Festival Hall of London, Palace of fine Arts in Brus-sells, Konzerthaus of Vienna, the Megaron in Athena, and the most famous internatonal festivals in Verbier, Salzbourg, la Roque d’Anthéron, and more. 

With Teldec, Boris Berezovksy has recorded works of ‪#‎Chopin‬, ‪#‎Schumann‬, ‪#‎Rachmaninov‬, ‪#‎Mussorgsky‬, ‪#‎Balakirev‬, ‪#‎Medtner‬, ‪#‎Ravel‬  and the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies. His recording of the Rachmaninov sonatas was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and his Ravel disc was recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, The BBC Music Magazine and the Sunday Independent. Boris Berezovsky also won the BBC Music Magazine Awards in March 2006 as Best Instrumentalist. His solo live recording Chopin/Godowsky was highly praised.

Through his virtuosity, strength of personality and intelligence, Yuri Bashmet as given the viola a new prominence and motivated the leading composers of our time to expand the repertoire with significant new music. He is Artistic Director of the December Nights Festival, Moscow, Principal Conductor of the Novaya Rorriya State Symphony Orchestra, and the founder / director of Moscow Soloists.

Yuri Bashmet spent his childhood in Lviv in Ukraine before studying at the Moscow Conservatoire with Vadim Borisovsky (of the Beethoven Quartet) and Feodor Druzhinin. In 1976, he won the International Viola Competition in Munich. Since then he has appeared with the world’s great orchestras, including Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston, Chicago and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. He has inspired many composers to write for him, and has enjoyed strong relationships with Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina. Concertos composed for him include works by Poul Ruders, Alexander Tchaikovsky and Alexander Raskatov. He has also given the world premieres of Styx by Giya Kancheli, The Myrrh Bearer by John Tavener and On Opened Ground by Mark-Anthony Turnage – all of which were written for him. In December 2002 Bashmet became Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of New Russia. Other orchestras with which he appears as conductor / soloist include the Dresdner Philharmoniker, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Tokyo Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Camerata Salzburg, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Brussels Philharmonic. He is the founder of Moscow Soloists, an ensemble he has performed with and directed since 1992. In chamber music his closest collaborators have included Sviatoslav Richter, Gidon Kremer, Mstislav Rostropovich, Maxim Vengerov, Natalia Gutman, Viktoria Mullova and the Borodin Quartet. He formed a highly successful trio with mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Other recent chamber music projects include Beethoven trios with Anne Sophie Mutter and Lyn Harrell. He is a frequent visitor to summer festivals such as Elbe, Verbier and Martha Argerich’s festival in Japan.

Among his many CDs is a recording for Deutsche Grammophon of the Gubaidulina Concerto and Kancheli Styx, winner of a Diapason d’Or award and a Grammy nomination. Other notable DG discs are Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Anne-Sophie Mutter, Brahms’s Piano Quartet N° 1 with Argerich, Kremer and Maisky, and the recently released Bartók Concerto with Berliner Philharmoniker and Boulez. For Onyx he and Moscow Soloists have embarked on a critically-acclaimed series of recordings: chamber symphonies by Shostakovich, Sviridoc and Vainberg; music by Stravinsky and Prokofiev (which received a Grammy award); and a disc of music by composers from the Far East, as well as a recital disc of Encores with pianist Mikhail Muntian.

Renowned around the most prestigious soloists and conductors on the international music scene, Salvatore Accardo gave his first professional recital at 13 with Paganini’s Capricci. At 15, he won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 he won the first Paganini Competition in Genoa. His vast repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music. Composers like Sciarrino, Donatoni, Piston, Piazzolla and Xenakis have written for him. Accardo plays regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, alternating solo concerts and recitals as conductor.

Following his strong inclination towards chamber music and an equally strong desire to promote young performers, in 1986 he founded the Master Courses of studies at the Fondazione Walter Stauffer in Cremona together with B. Giuranna, R. Filippini and F. Petracchi, and in 1992 he founded the Quartetto Accardo. In 1996 Accardo re-founded the Orchestra da Camera Italiana, which features the best pupils and ex-pupils of the Cremona "Walter Stauffer" Academy, and with which he regularly plays and records CDs. 
Accardo’s recordings for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Sony are almost beyond count and form an unrivaled patrimony of the last decades.

He has received many prizes, among which being named in 1982 by the President of the Republic, Pertini, as Cavaliere di Gran Croce.

Accardo plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin (ex “Hart” 1730).

Duo Lechner Tiempo, Argentinian brother-and-sister duo Karin Lechner and Sergio Tiempo play together like the sun and the moon, the ying and the yang. This pair’s four hands work, and sound, as one. Described by Gramophone as “a formidable Duo”, the siblings will be joined by Natasha Binder, Karin Lechner's daughter and a 12-year old phenomenon.

With the I Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conducted by Toby Hoffman.

Mozart: Concerto for 2 pianos / Concerto for 3 pianos / Overture, Clemenza di Tito.

"From Bach with his many musicians children to Mozart, the only son of Leopold, the Marsalis brothers, The Jackson Five, the history of music - says the violinist and artistic director Michael Guttman - is full of talented families who play together and inspire each other. Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, brothers, Robert and Clara Schumann, lovers, are other examples that have no doubt inspired by some of the families who will perform in Pietrasanta this summer! Karin Lechner and Sergio Tiempo, brother and sister, a piano duo among the greatest of our time, Pinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth, husband and wife, Evelyne and Boris Berezovsky, father and daughter, Mischa Maisky Lily and Sascha, father and children, will show us how easy it is to make music and beautiful when love is involved. With Salvatore Accardo as Pater Familias of the Italian musicians, Mario Brunello and Giovanni Sollima as prominent members of the family of the cello, this seventh edition of our festival promises once again to be so warm and cozy like a big family reunion."

Last year he was involved in a moment of great intensity with his violin in the cloister of Pietrasanta (pictured during the performance along with the festival's artistic director and violinist Michael Guttman), and now, just over a month since the beginning of festival, it is the desire to listen to a lot of the magic from his Stradivari and Guarneri.
Tuesday, July 30th the "Paganini contemporary" will play in Pietrasanta music by Vivaldi, Telemann and other composers, accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra Italian.
Click and watch all the full program of this evening and the festival:
http://pietrasantainconcerto.com/programme.php?lg=en

One of the main novelties of the 2013 Festival is the collaboration with "Classic", the only TV channel dedicated to great music aired on Sky (channel 728).
Thanks to an agreement with the channel, "Pietrasanta in Concerto" will enjoy a special promotional showcase with the passage of 80 spots of 30'' in the month prior to the event. The spot made ​​for "Classic" by Alexandre Brandt contains images of the most fascinating of the city and concerts in the cloister.

CLICK HERE AND WATCH THE VIDEO

Friday, July 26, 2013 will kick off the seventh edition of the international festival "Pietrasanta in Concerto" with a program full of big concerts with international stars of the musical firmament.
Having the festival theme of "the family", protagonists in the first concert a brother and a sister: Sergio Tiempo, Venezuelan pianist, who performs with his sister, the pianist Karin Lechner. There will also be the daughter of Karin, Natasha Binder, a real talent of the age of twelve ...

Friday, July 26 - Chiostro di Sant'Agostino -
Brother and sister in Mozart:
Karin Lechner, Sergio Tiempo, Natasha Binder and I Cameristi of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Mozart's Concerto for 2 pianos.

Two pages dedicated to the International Festival "Pietrasanta in Concerto" on the web magazine "One of Tuscany West".
Click on each image to enlarge and read each of the two pages...