The pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja is one of the most important performers of our time. In 2020, she was awarded the International Classical Music Award (ICMA) for her life’s work. A few years earlier, she received the country’s highest award, «Priestess of Art,» from her native Georgia. In her adopted home of Austria, she was also awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class, for special services to the country’s culture. In 2024, she received the Wigmore Hall Medal in London.

She owes her artistic development to the legendary pianist Sviatoslav Richter, who recognized and promoted her extraordinary talent early on. The partnership between the two developed into a friendship and lasted until Richter’s death in 1997.

In 1978, Elisabeth Leonskaja left the Soviet Union for Austria and celebrated the start of her great career with an acclaimed concert at the Salzburg Festival. Since then, she has performed as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors around the world and has given solo recitals in all of Europe’s major concert halls.

As a pianist who always wants to get to the quintessence of the works and who feels committed to the whole of music, chamber music is close to her heart in addition to solo performances. She had a long-standing musical friendship with the Alban Berg Quartet; their joint recordings are considered legendary.

Elisabeth Leonskaja’s extensive discography is adorned with numerous awards. She has received the coveted Caecilia Prize and the Diapason d’Or, among others. She has recorded all of the piano sonatas by Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 2024, the piano concertos by Robert Schumann and Edvard Grieg were released with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Sanderling. Her most recent solo album is dedicated to the Second Viennese School – Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, and, with orchestra, she released in 2025 Beethoven’s Emperor piano concerto, coupled with the quintet for piano and winds by the same composer.