With more than 83 million YouTube views and some 165,000 subscribers to her channel, Valentina Lisitsa is one of the most watched classical musicians on the internet, using digital innovation to champion classical music and performance. Impressed by her YouTube success, the Royal Albert Hall, in an unprecedented step, opened its doors for Valentina’s London debut on 19 June 2012. That concert, recorded and filmed by Decca Classics, became her first release on the label; it was also Google’s first-ever live HD stream.
With her multi-faceted playing described as “dazzling”, Lisitsa is at ease in a vast repertoire ranging from Bach and Mozart to Shostakovich and Bernstein; her orchestral repertoire alone includes more than 40 concertos. She has a special affinity for the music of Rachmaninov and Beethoven and continues to add to her vast repertoire each season.
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1973, Lisitsa began playing the piano at the age of three, giving her first solo recital a year later. She gained a place at the Lysenko Music School for Gifted Children and later studied under Ludmilla Tsvierko at the Kiev Conservatory. In 1991 she won the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition together with Alexei Kuznetsoff. The couple married the following year and took the huge gamble of moving to the USA. In 1995 Lisitsa made her New York debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Since then, she has performed extensively around the world and appeared in such venues as London’s Wigmore Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein. When her career seemed to be flagging, it was spectacularly reignited by a home-made DVD, shot by her husband in 2006, of Valentina playing the 24 Chopin Études. Offered on Amazon, sales of the unedited recording skyrocketed after the couple posted it on YouTube. Valentina Lisitsa had found international fame online. Subsequent YouTube videos expanded her following, culminating in the 2012 Albert Hall recital.
In February 2013 she made her debut in the main auditorium of the Berlin Philharmonie and during the year also gave recitals throughout Europe, in Washington, Brisbane and Seoul. As well as returning to the Berlin Philharmonie for a recital in December, Valentina also appeared in New York on 19 October to open the 92nd St. Y series with a programme chosen by the public online. The year’s concerto commitments took her across the USA as well as to Mexico City, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the BBC Proms in London. 2014 included concerts in Dresden, Los Angeles, Paris, Vienna, Istanbul, Milan, Sao Paulo, Leipzig and on tour in Japan as well as recitals in St. Paul, Paris, Bucharest, Quebec, at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Bristol Proms and Menuhin Gstaad Festival and on tour in the Netherlands and Germany. Highlights of 2015 included performances with the Cincinnati Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Prague Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony orchestras as well as a recital tour of South Korea.
In 2012 Valentina Lisitsa signed an exclusive agreement with Decca Classics. Her June 2012 Albert Hall recital, immediately available as both CD and DVD for pre-order on the night of the concert, was followed by a 2-CD release of the complete concertos of Rachmaninov and Paganini Rhapsody with the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Francis. 2013 saw the release of an exciting all-Liszt recital on both CD and LP. In spring 2014, Decca issued Chasing Pianos, Valentina’s recording of the piano music of Michael Nyman, in celebration of the composer’s 70th birthday. Featuring music from Nyman’s soundtracks to well-loved films such as The Piano and Wonderland, the companion digital release represents the complete published Nyman oeuvre for piano, running to over 110 minutes. November 2014 brought the release of Études, an album comprising Schumann’s Symphonic Études as well as all of Chopin’s contributions to the genre. In her next Decca release, released in April 2015, Valentina played the piano music of Philip Glass.
The 2019/2020 season saw Valentina perform recitals in Istanbul, Vienna, Zurich, Rome Geneva, Essen and Brussels and a return to Madison and Amelia Island Chamber Music Festivals in the USA. She also made her debut with Philharmonia Orchestra under Alpesh Chauhan performing Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2 and returned to Fort Wayne Philharmonic with a programme including Piano Themes from Cinema’s Golden Age and tours New Zealand with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra performing Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3.
Highlights of the past seasons include amongst others a sold-out concert at Auditorio Nacional with the Spanish National Orchestra, where Valentina played all piano concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergej Rachmaninoff in one evening. She has also performed at Berlin Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Wigmore Hall in London, Prinzregententheater in Munich, Carnegie Hall in New York, NCPA in Beijing, Teatro Major in Bogota and at festivals including the BBC Proms, Dvorak Prague Festival and Musica Mundi Chamber Festival in Brussels. In recent seasons, Valentina performed as a soloist with London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, Staatskapelle Dresden, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic.
4/2022