Kissin made regular recital tours of Europe, America and Asia. In 1997, he gave the first solo piano recital in the history of The Proms in London. In September 1990, he made his North American debut playing Chopin's two piano concertos with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and the first piano recital in Carnegie Hall's centennial season. 1 with Herbert von Karajan at the Berlin Philharmonic's New Year's Eve Concert which was broadcast internationally, with the performance repeated the following year at the Salzburg Easter Festival. In December of the same year he played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. In 1988 he toured Europe with the Moscow Virtuosi and Vladimir Spivakov and also made his London debut with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. In 1987, at age sixteen, he made his West European debut at the Berlin Festival as well as his United Kingdom debut, alongside conductor Valery Gergiev and violinists Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin, at The Lichfield Festival. Kissin's first appearances outside Russia were in 1985 in Eastern Europe, followed a year later by his first tour of Japan. His talents were revealed to the international scene in 1984, at the age of twelve, when he played and recorded both of Chopin's piano concertos with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. The year after that, he gave his first recital in Moscow.

20 in D minor with the Ulyanovsk Symphony Orchestra. At the school he became a student of Anna Kantor, who remained his only piano teacher.Īt the age of ten he made his debut performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. Recognized as a child prodigy at age six, he began piano studies at the Gnessin Music School in Moscow. Kissin was born in Moscow to Jewish parents.

Russian piano prodigy