Vladimir Ashkenazy

Member of the Honorary Committee

Vladimir Ashkenazy first came to prominence at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and became the most famous pianist of our time. He has spent most of the past 20 years conducting. Having been Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic from 1998 to 2003, he became Music Director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo in 2004.

As "Honorary Conductor” Ashkenazy also has close ties with the Philharmonic Orchestra and is Music Director of the Youth Orchestra of the European Union as well as Honorary Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He has close ties with many other large orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra (he was their first guest conductor), San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and Music Director from 1988 to 1996).

As a pianist he also headlined Mozart and Beethoven concerts in Europe and Asia and supplemented his repertoire with new recordings such as preludes and fugues by Shostakovitch, which won him a Grammy in 1999, and the "Wohltemperierte Klavier” by Bach.

(March 2006)