“A pianist of magisterial elegance, power and insight” (The New York Times), Leif Ove Andsnes is “one of the most gifted musicians of his generation” (The Wall Street Journal). With his commanding technique and searching interpretations, the celebrated Norwegian pianist has won acclaim worldwide, playing concertos and recitals in the world’s leading concert halls and with its foremost orchestras, while building an extensive discography.
He is the founding director of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, was co-artistic director of the Risør Festival of Chamber Music for nearly two decades and has served as music director of California’s Ojai Music Festival. A Gramophone Hall of Fame inductee, Andsnes holds honorary doctorates from Norway’s University of Bergen and New York’s Juilliard School.
Andsnes is currently partnered with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on “Mozart Momentum 1785/86,” a multi-season project exploring one of the most creative and seminal periods of the composer’s career. This project will see Andsnes lead the ensemble in Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20–24 at key European venues, besides recording them for Sony Classical. The project marks his second artistic partnership with the orchestra, following “The Beethoven Journey,” an epic four-season focus on the composer’s music for piano and orchestra. The project saw Andsnes give more than 230 performances in 108 cities across 27 countries, as chronicled in the documentary “Concerto: A Beethoven Journey” and captured on an award-winning Sony Classical series.
Now recording exclusively for that Sony Classical, the pianist recently received his 11th Grammy Award nomination and has been recognized with six Gramophone Awards. Recent releases include “Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes,” the Billboard best-selling “Sibelius” and collaborations with Marc-André Hamelin, Matthias Goerne, the Danish National Symphony and the Bergen Philharmonic. Andsnes’ previous discography comprises more than 30 EMI Classics recordings, many of them best sellers, spanning repertoire from the Baroque to the present day.
His accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award, the Gilmore Artist Award and Norway’s Peer Gynt Prize and Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. He was the first Scandinavian to curate Carnegie Hall’s “Perspectives” series and has been pianist-in-residence of the Berlin Philharmonic, artist-in-residence of the New York Philharmonic and was the subject of a London Symphony Orchestra Artist Portrait Series.
Andsnes was born in Karmøy, Norway, in 1970, and studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory. He is currently an artistic adviser for the Prof. Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy in Bergen, where he lives with his partner and their three children.
August 2021
