Mikhail Pletnev

Mikhail Vasilievich Pletnev (Russian: Михаи́л Васи́льевич Плетнёв, Mikhail Vasil'evič Pletnëv; born 14 April 1957) is a Russian concert pianist, conductor, and composer.

Pletnev was born into a musical family in Arkhangelsk, then part of the Soviet Union. His father played and taught the bayan, and his mother was a pianist. He entered the Central School of Music at the age of 13, studying under Evgeny Timakin, and, in 1974, entered the Moscow Conservatory, studying under Yakov Flier and Lev Vlassenko. At age 21, he won the Gold Medal at the VI International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978, which earned him international recognition and drew great attention worldwide. The following year he made his debut in the United States. He also taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Pletnev has acknowledged Sergei Rachmaninoff as a particularly notable influence on him as a musician.

In 1988, Pletnev was invited to perform at the superpower conference in Washington, D.C., where he met and befriended Mikhail Gorbachev. From this friendship, he gained the support to found two years later the Russian National Orchestra in 1990, the first non-government-supported orchestra in Russia since 1917, and became its first principal conductor. He and the orchestra made their recording debut on Virgin Classics, releasing Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony and Marche Slave in 1991. He stepped down as Principal Conductor in the late 1990s, but remained the orchestra's artistic director. Mikhail Pletnev was principal guest conductor of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland from 2008 to 2010.

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