Elisabeth Leonskaja

Elisabeth Leonskaja, also known as Leonskaya, (Russian: Елизавета Ильинична Леонская, Elizaveta Ilinichna Leonskaja) is a Russian pianist. She was born in a Russian family in Tbilisi, Soviet Union (now Georgia), on November 23, 1945.

She gave her first concert at the age of eleven. In 1964 she began her piano studies at the Moscow Conservatory with Jacob Milstein. During her conservatory years she won various prizes in competitions in Bucharest, Brussels and Paris. Her musical development was strongly influenced by her collaboration with Svjatoslav Richter, who often accompanied her at the keyboard.

She left the Soviet Union in 1978 and settled in Vienna. A well-known recording of hers is the transcription for two pianos by Edvard Grieg of Mozart's piano sonatas KV 545 and KV 533, which she recorded together with Sviatoslav Richter.

Besides her activities as a soloist, Leonskaja greatly enjoys devoting time to chamber music; she frequently collaborates with the Emerson, Borodin and Artemis Quartet.

Leonskaja's recording of Brahms' Piano Sonatas was awarded the Cecilia Prize and her recordings of works by Liszt were distinguished with a Diapason d'Or. In her second homeland Austria, Leonskaja's achievements were widely recognized, among other things with the awarding of the Österreichische Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst erster Klasse in 2006, the highest cultural distinction in Austria.