Russian Escapee and Pianist Mikhail Voskresensky

Friday, October 20 at 7:30 pm PDT
Performing Arts Center 155 - Concert Hall

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'For me, it was only one choice': Famed Russian pianist on leaving Russia to protest Putin's invasion

Mikhail Voskresensky and another man sit together in an interview with Christiane Amanpour on the set of CNN news

Watch the 15 minute interview on CNN

87-year-old pianist Mikhail Voskresensky left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. He speaks with Christiane Amanpour about why he felt compelled to leave and composer Alan Fletcher reflects on bringing Voskresensky to America.

Mikhail Voskresensky was the head of the piano department at the Moscow Conservatoire until his escape from Russia.

He is a recipient of the City of Moscow Prize (2011) and a Knight of Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun. The musician’s concert activities began at the International Youth and Student Festival in Warsaw where he performed Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto with the Bolshoi Orchestra under the baton of Yevgeny Svetlanov (1955). In 1957 he performed Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto at the Prague Spring festival in the presence of the composer, who highly praised his execution of the work. That was the premiere of the concerto in Europe.

Voskresensky’s discography includes over sixty discs featuring all of Mozart’s concerti (2010) and sonatas (2015). Regularly conducts master-classes throughout the world. The musician’s students have been prize-winners on one hundred and thirty occasions at international competitions and won 1st prizes fifty-seven times.