Lev Vlassenko

Lev Nikolaevich Vlassenko (Russian: Лев Никола́евич Вла́сенко; 24 December 1928 – 24 August 1996) was a pianist and teacher who was born in the Soviet Union.

Lev Vlassenko was born on 24 December 1928 in Tiflis, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union to Nikolai Appolonovich Vlassenko and Vera Solomonovna Benditskaya.

Lev Vlassenko's first music teacher was his mother Vera. Lev entered the music school for gifted children in Tiflis in the class of Anastasia Davidovna Virsaladze - herself a pupil of the renowned Anna Yesipova. Lev began to play in public at an early age. At the age of ten years, he played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 with renowned conductor Odysseas Dimitriadis. In 1948, Lev Vlassenko entered the class of Yakov Flier at the Moscow Conservatory and completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

He gained international recognition after winning the First Prize and Gold Medal at the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest in 1956. He and Chinese pianist Liu Shikun came second to Van Cliburn at the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1958.

Lev Vlassenko taught at the Moscow Conservatory for 39 years. He has taught several world-renowned pianists such as Mikhail Pletnev, Kalle Randalu, Mykola Suk, Lev Vinocour, Vladimir Daych, Natasha Vlassenko, Oleg Stepanov, Boris Petrov, Teofils Biķis, Karine Oganian, Jania Aubakirova, Alexander Strukov, Duncan Gifford and others. In the early 1990s he was professor in the United States at Indiana University and the New England Conservatory, Boston.

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