Carnegie Hall

Leif Ove Andsnes is “a pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight” (The New York Times) who is considered “one of the most gifted musicians of his generation” (The Wall Street Journal). With his commanding technique and searching interpretations, the celebrated Norwegian pianist has won acclaim worldwide, playing concertos and recitals in the world’s leading concert halls and with its foremost orchestras, while building an esteemed and extensive discography. An avid chamber musician, he is the founding director of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, was co–artistic director of the Risør Chamber Music Festival for nearly two decades, and served as music director of California’s Ojai Music Festival in 2012. He was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in July 2013, and has received honorary doctorates from Norway’s universities of Bergen and Oslo, and New York’s The Juilliard School.

Two concertos figure prominently in Mr. Andsnes’s 2024–2025 season. After recent performances of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with ensembles that include the New York Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, he reprises the work with the National Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and Oslo Philharmonic. Similarly, after recent accounts of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre de Paris, he performs it at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival with the Berliner Philharmoniker, on a North European tour with Italy’s Mahler Academy Orchestra, and with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, and London Philharmonic orchestras. To complete the concert season, he joins the Czech Philharmonic for Grieg’s Piano Concerto, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra for a pairing of Haydn and Franck, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra for Debussy’s Fantaisie at the Hamburg International Music Festival. With a solo program that combines Chopin’s Twenty-Four Preludes with sonatas by Norwegians Grieg and Geirr Tveitt, Mr. Andsnes embarks on an extensive transatlantic recital tour that includes a performance at Wigmore Hall, where his season-long residency also features chamber collaborations with pianist Bertrand Chamayou and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Mr. Andsnes’s discography comprises more than 50 titles, many of them bestsellers. Spanning repertoire from the Baroque to the present day, they have been recognized with 11 Grammy nominations, seven Gramophone Awards, and many other international prizes, while his recordings of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Mozart’s piano concertos nos. 9 and 18 were both celebrated as among the best albums of the year by The New York Times. Capturing his two major multi-season projects with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, his Sony Classical series A Beethoven Journey and Mozart Momentum 1785–1786 were honored with multiple Gramophone Awards, Belgium’s Prix Caecilia, and BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year. Mr. Andsnes’s other accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award, the Gilmore Artist Award, and Norway’s Peer Gynt Prize and Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. He curated a Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall during the 2004–2005 season and has been pianist in residence at the Berliner Philharmoniker, artist in residence at the New York Philharmonic, and the subject of a London Symphony Orchestra Artist Portrait series.

Mr. Andsnes was born in Karmøy, Norway, in 1970 and studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory under renowned Czech professor Jirí Hlinka. He is currently an artistic adviser for the Prof. Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy in Bergen, where he lives with his wife and their three children.