Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is an internationally recognized solo pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor. He is originally from Russia and has held Icelandic citizenship since 1972. He has lived in Switzerland since 1978. Ashkenazy has collaborated with well-known orchestras and soloists. In addition, he has recorded a large repertoire of classical and romantic works. His recordings have earned him five Grammy awards and Iceland's Order of the Falcon.
The Takács Quartet is a string quartet founded in Budapest, Hungary, and now based in Boulder, Colorado, United States.
The Queen Elisabeth Competition is an international competition for career-starting musicians held in Brussels. The competition is named after Queen Elisabeth of Belgium (1876–1965). It is a competition for classical violinists, pianists, singers and cellists. It also used to hold international competitions for composers from 1953 to 2012. The current Patron is Queen Mathilde of Belgium.
Daejin Kim is a South Korean pianist, an alumnus of the Juilliard School. He won the first prize in the 6th Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition - which is called Cleveland Competition today, in 1985. Kim is a professor of piano, the Dean of the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and the music director of the Changwon Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sergei Babayan is an Armenian-American pianist. Described by Le Devoir as a "genius", Babayan won many international competitions, including the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition in 1989 and the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in 1991. He appears as soloist with leading orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester, London Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, under such conductors as Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Tugan Sokhiev, Neeme Järvi, Rafael Payare, and David Robertson.
Shmuel Ashkenasi is an Israeli violinist and teacher.
Elisabeth Leonskaja is a Soviet and Austrian pianist. She was born to a family of Jewish and Polish extraction living in Tbilisi, then the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Anna Vinnitskaya is a Russian pianist who won the 2007 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition.
Malcolm Frager was an American piano virtuoso and recording artist.
Plamena Mangova is a Bulgarian pianist.
Mikhail Voskresensky is a Russian pianist who left Russia for the United States in 2022 protesting against Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Boris Leonidovich Giltburg is an Israeli classical pianist, born in Russia.
Joseph Alfidi was an American pianist, composer, and conductor and initially a child prodigy. He was born in Yonkers, New York as the son of American-born parents of Italian descent, his father, Frank Alfidi, was an accordion player who ran a music school in Yonkers. Known as "Joey" in his childhood, he was three when he started to play several instruments in his father's studio. By the age of four, he frequently improvised little compositions at the piano, and soon became fascinated by symphonic music as well.
Alfredo Perl is a Chilean-German classical pianist and conductor, best known for his recitals of Beethoven's sonatas.
Sergey Khachatryan is an Armenian violinist. Since 1993 he has lived in Germany where he gave his first orchestral concert at the age of nine in the Kurhaus, Wiesbaden.
Nikolay Madoyan is an Armenian virtuoso violinist. Madoyan's continuous performance of 59 world classics of different styles and epochs, for more than 33 hours, has been entered in the Guinness World Records book as an “Officially Amazing” achievement.
Chi Ho Han is a South Korean pianist.
Henry Kramer is an American pianist.
Rémi Geniet is a French pianist.
Tomoki Sakata is a Japanese pianist.
