Ivan Bessonov, piano

Scholarship holder since 2019

Ivan Bessonov, born in 2002 in St. Petersburg, was given his first piano lessons at the age of six. In 2012 he began his studies for especially gifted children at the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory. In 2015 he gave his debut as a film composer. In the same year he won the Grand Prix at the International Chopin Piano Competition in St. Petersburg. In 2016 Ivan Bessonov won the first prize and the audience prize at the Grand Piano Competition in Moscow and the first prize at the International Anton Rubinstein Piano Competition. For his interpretation of Tchaikowsky’s first piano concerto he won the first prize at the Eurovision Young Musicians 2018 as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Since 2015 Ivan Bessonov has given recitals and played with orchestras in the whole of Russia and Europe. Renowned conductors like Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Spivakov invite him to perform with their orchestras, e.g. Mariinsky Orchestra, the Tschaikowsky-Symphonieorchester and the Russian Nationalphilharmonie. He has been invited to famous festivals like the Moscow Easter Festival with Valery Gergiev, the Verbier Festival and the piano festival La Roque d’Anthéron.

For his debut album in 2019 with the label ARS Produktion Ivan Bessonov recorded his own works and those of Frédéric Chopin. In 2021 Ivan Bessonov’s second CD came out with works by Tschaikowsky, Rachmaninow and Prokofjew.

Further high points in his career were his recital in the famous Auditorium of the Fondation Louis Vuitton and his debut in the Prinzregententheater in Munich. In future seasons he will perform in the Cologne Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg and in Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Holland, Spain and Canada. He will make his debut in the Berlin Philharmonie in October 2022 with the second piano concerto by Rachmaninow.