Leif Ove Andsnes

The New York Times calls Leif Ove Andsnes “a pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight,” and the Wall Street Journal names him “one of the most gifted musicians of his generation.” 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 esteemed and extensive discography. An avid chamber musician, 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 served as music director of California’s Ojai Music Festival in 2012. He was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in July 2013, and has received honorary doctorates from Norway’s Universities of Bergen and Oslo and New York’s Juilliard School.

Two concertos figure prominently in Andsnes’ 2024-25 season. After recent performances of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with ensembles including the New York Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, he reprises the work with Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and on tour with the Oslo Philharmonic. Similarly, after recent accounts of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3 with ensembles including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Orchestre de Paris, Andsnes performs it at Baden-Baden’s Easter Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic, on a North European tour with Italy’s Mahler Academy Orchestra, and with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, and London Philharmonic. To complete the concert season, he joins the Czech Philharmonic for Grieg’s Concerto, the Barcelona Symphony for a pairing of Haydn and Franck, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie for Debussy’s Fantaisie at the Hamburg International Festival. With this evening’s solo program combining Chopin’s 24 Preludes with sonatas by Norwegians Grieg and Geirr Tveitt, he embarks on an extensive transatlantic recital tour, featuring dates at New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall. The latter forms part of a season-long residency at the British venue, to which he returns for chamber collaborations with fellow pianist Bertrand Chamayou and with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO), as the culmination of that group’s European tour.

As the MCO’s first Artistic Partner, Andsnes has already led the ensemble from the keyboard in two major, multi-season projects. In “Mozart Momentum 1785/86,” they explored one of the most creative and seminal periods of the composer’s career with live accounts of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20–24 at London’s BBC Proms and other key European venues, as well as recorded ones for Sony Classical. The project’s first album, MM/1785, was nominated for a 2022 International Classical Music Award, and recognized with France’s prestigious Diapason d’or de l’année for Best Concerto Album of 2021. The second album, MM/1786, was named one of the “Best Classical Albums of 2022” by Gramophone, while the two-volume series won the magazine’s 2022 “Special Achievement” Award. This followed the success of “The Beethoven Journey.” An epic four-season focus on the composer’s music for piano and orchestra, this project took the pianist to 108 cities in 27 countries for more than 230 live performances. He led the MCO in complete Beethoven concerto cycles in Bonn, Hamburg, Lucerne, Vienna, Paris, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bodø, and London, besides collaborating with such leading international ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Munich Philharmonic.

Andsnes’ discography comprises more than 50 titles spanning repertoire from the Baroque to the present day. He has been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards and his many international prizes include seven Gramophone Awards. His EMI Classics recordings of the music of his compatriot Edvard Grieg have been especially celebrated and his recording of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 9 and 18 was a New York Times “Best of the Year” selection. Andsnes won yet another Gramophone Award for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with Antonio Pappano and the Berlin Philharmonic. Leif Ove Andsnes: The Complete Warner Classics Edition 1990-2010, a 36-CD retrospective of his EMI and Virgin recordings, was released to acclaim in 2023.

Andsnes has received Norway’s distinguished honor, Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, and in 2007, he received the prestigious Peer Gynt Prize, awarded by parliament to honor prominent Norwegians for their achievements in politics, sports, and culture. In 2004–05, he became the youngest musician (and first Scandinavian) to curate Carnegie Hall’s “Perspectives” series, and in 2015–16, he was the subject of the London Symphony Orchestra’s Artist Portrait Series. Having been 2010–11 Pianist in Residence of the Berlin Philharmonic, Andsnes went on to serve as 2017–18 Artist in Residence of the New York Philharmonic and 2019–20 Artist in Residence of Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony.

Leif Ove Andsnes was born in Karmøy, Norway in 1970, and studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory under the renowned Czech professor Jirí Hlinka. He has also received invaluable advice from the Belgian piano teacher Jacques de Tiège, who, like Hlinka, greatly influenced his style and philosophy of playing. Today Andsnes lives with his wife and their three children in Bergen. He is Artistic Adviser at the city’s Prof. Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy, where he gives a master class to participating students each year.

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