Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (Russian: Владимир Давидович Ашкенази, Vladimir Davidovič Aškenazi) (born July 6, 1937) is a Russian conductor and virtuoso pianist. He has been a citizen of Iceland, the home of his wife Þórunn, since 1972 and currently lives with his family in Switzerland. Ashkenazy was born in Gorky, Russia to an Ashkenazi Jewish father and an ethnic Russian mother. He began playing piano at the age of six and, showing prodigious ... more

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (Russian: Владимир Давидович Ашкенази, Vladimir Davidovič Aškenazi) (born July 6, 1937) is a Russian conductor and virtuoso pianist. He has been a citizen of Iceland, the home of his wife Þórunn, since 1972 and currently lives with his family in Switzerland. Ashkenazy was born in Gorky, Russia to an Ashkenazi Jewish father and an ethnic Russian mother. He began playing piano at the age of six and, showing prodigious talent, was accepted at the Central Music School at age eight. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, he won second prize in the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and the first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels in 1956. He shared the first prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition with British pianist John Ogdon. As a student, he became a KGB informant but was dismissed when he married his foreign-born wife in 1961. Vladimir Ashkenazy is renowned for his performances of... less