Biography
With his commanding technique and searching interpretations, Leif Ove Andsnes has won worldwide acclaim, performing in the world’s leading concert halls and with its foremost orchestras. An avid chamber musician, he is also the founding director of Norway’s Rosendal Chamber Music Festival.
Andsnes’ discography explores a diverse range of repertoire recorded over the last twenty five years, of which recent releases include the 3 CD “Beethoven Journey” with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a selection of Sibelius’ little known piano gems, a Stravinsky duo CD with Marc André Hamelin and an album dedicated to Chopin’s 4 epic Ballades, interspersed with 3 of the composer’s Nocturnes. The BBC Music Magazine named the Chopin album Editor’s Choice and France’s Resmusica reviewed it as “one of the great piano discs of this year or even this decade!” Andsnes’ next recording project for Sony Classical will see him partner once again with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra for an in-depth exploration of Mozart’s piano concertos and chamber music written in the two defining years of 1785 and 1786.
Andsnes has received Norway’s distinguished honor, Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav as well as the prestigious Peer Gynt Prize. He is also the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award and the Gilmore Artist Award. He was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2013 and made an honorary doctorate of both New York’s Juilliard School of Music and the Bergen Conservatoire in 2016.
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, has greatly influenced his style and philosophy of playing. He is currently an Artistic Adviser for the Prof. Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy in Bergen where he gives annual masterclasses. Andsnes lives in Bergen with his family of three children. Andsnes lives in Bergen with his partner and their three children.
Recent News
Oslo Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko Celebrate the Orchestra’s Centenary with a European Tour Featuring Leif Ove Andsnes
National and civic pride helped launch the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra a century ago. They have been boosted since by its outstanding achievements at home and on the international stage. The Norwegian orchestra, which gave its first performance in...
New Releases Today: Leif Ove Andsnes Plays Chopin, Benjamin Appl Sings Bach, and Paul Watkins Performs Finzi
Today marks the release of three major recordings by pianist Leif Ove Andses, baritone Benjamin Appl and cellist Paul Watkins. Chopin: Leif Ove Andsnes On Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes, Leif Ove Andsnes intersperses the Romantic master composer’s four Ballades –...
Sir Antonio Pappano & Leif Ove Andsnes Return to the New York Philharmonic
Sir Antonio Pappano and Leif Ove Andsnes make their highly anticipated return to the David Geffen Hall for three performances on 8th, 9th and 10th February, 2018, with the New York Philharmonic. The British born and New York raised Maestro Pappano makes his first...
Reviews
“Andsnes has entered an elite circle of pianistic stardom. … When he sits in front of the keyboard …, extraordinary things happen.”
“In the first movement of his Second Piano Concerto, Beethoven interrupts the lively giddy mood for a few bars to pause briefly with a dreamy melody. Nothing big, just a pretty interlude, one would think. But, as Leif Ove Andsnes hinted, there with a trill, a slight voltage hesitation and, as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO), dipped the sound the passage suddenly gave off a very special magic. Such small miracles – and there were several – showed the exceptional level of the evening, in the sold-out Laeiszhalle giving the Elbe Philharmonic concerts a brilliant start to the season. Normally the repertoire of orchestras and their guests allows too little time for detailed work. Andsnes and the multinational elite group of the MCO have been working for years on the intricacies of their Beethoven-image. The blind understanding between the soloist and his partner could be felt in every bar of the piano concertos … The pianist brings Beethoven down from the base of the “Titans” and provides him with both feet on the ground, where we can see him through the eyes of the soul. People rarely have the chance to come this close to Beethoven “
More Reviews
“Things got more refined with the appearance of pianist Leif Ove Andsnes to perform Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 4 in G minor, the least well-known of the four. After emigrating from Russia after the October Revolution in 1917 and enjoying great success in the USA, the Fourth, whilst already started, was not finished until 1926. Appearing after a compositional lull, it was different enough to be scathingly received. Gone are the sweeping, eternal lines, memorable melodies and thick scoring. The Fourth is varied and subtle and more thinly scored than the Second or Third, shifting from idea to idea so quickly that it was condemned as trivial and salon-like by his critics. A New York Evening Telegramcritic clearly saw it not as progressive, but diminutive, writing that “Mme Cécile Chaminade might safely have perpetrated it on her third glass of vodka”. Andnes mastered the virtuosic work with remarkable ease. His attention to sound was beautiful and varied, and he filled the corners of each tone regardless of dynamic level or style of attack. It was a pleasure to listen to him, particularly within the introspective second movement, which was a dream. At the close of his performance one could have heard a pin drop, and Andnes was called to the stage repeatedly, graciously offering a Sibelius Romance as an encore.”
“… Leif Ove Andsnes performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 4 – with its complex melody and intricate solo part – displaying both an immaculate technique and virtuosic empathy for the music.”
“Andsnes’s pianistic skill in sustaining all but orchestral accompaniments was formidable.”
“Most recitalists treat programme-making as a secondary art: a bit of light and dark, fast and slow, to point up contrasts, modulate a theme and display a variety of skills. Matthias Goerne and Leif Ove Andsnes are made of sterner stuff. For their collaboration on Tuesday they chose a monothematic programme on the subject of death, comprising music by just two composers. Morbid? No, exquisite.”
“Andsnes evidently took as much care with the musical line of Shostakovich’s Night as he would have done with a solo work. He brought out the all-too-obvious ‘quirkiness’ of Immortality, and there could be no faulting strength or starkness in the performance from either artists of Death.”
“The great pleasure of the evening came from Andsnes… wonderfully penumbral in the Shostakovich, he picked out Mahler’s counterpoint with exquisite, Bach-like lucidity.”
“A pianist of magisterial elegance, power and insight.”
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