Mikhail Rudy (Piano)
Mikhail Rudy is a Russian-born French pianist. He was born on April 3, 1953 in
Tashkent, Uzbekistan where his family had been deported by the Soviet regime.
His grandparents were imprisoned in concentration camps. His family moved from
Tashkent to Siberia, then to a small village near Voronezh until they were
finally "rehabilitated" in Stalino (Donetsk), in eastern Ukraine.
Mikhail Rudy's interest in music began at the age of 5 when he heard a
neighbor play the violin. Despite difficult living conditions, Rudy began music
lessons and pursued his studies in music at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in
Moscow under Yakov Flier. He greatly impressed the jury at the Marguerite Long
Competition in 1975 through his performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata
(regarded as among the most challenging solo works in the entire piano
repertoire) in which he won the First Prize.
Rudy made his debut on the occasion of Marc Chagall's 90th birthday in 1977,
performing Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovitch and Isaac
Stern. From then on Rudy's career included performances with the best orchestras
in the world such as the Berlin Philharmonic and renowned conductors such as
Lorin Maazel, Herbert von Karajan and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Rudy asked for political asylum and settled down in France in the mid 1970s.
He returned to Russia, his native land in 1989 and toured extensively with the
St. Petersburg Philharmonic. He also founded and was artistic director of the
Festival de St. Riquier in France.
Mikhail Rudy is an explorative and experimental artist and doesn't restrict
himself with being just a concert pianist. He has performed with jazz pianist
Misha Alperin with whom he devised a program entitled Double Dream, performing
improvised compositions based on the classical repertoire. This included partly
rewritten and partly improvised works by Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin,
Debussy, Janбиek and Scriabin. This program has already been performed in
Norway, France and Germany receiving enthusiastic responses from audiences.
Rudy also conveys his interest in the arts through theatrical shows and has
written a book, The Novel of a Pianist, published in 2008 by Le Rocher. He has
also written and performed a theatrical and musical play after Wіadysіaw
Szpilman’s book The Pianist along with French actor Robin Renucci. The show ran
in Paris in 2005 for more than four months and received great acclaim from both
audiences and critics alike. A tour of forty-five cities throughout France
followed in 2006.
Rudy is a respected television broadcaster and is active in experimental
video-filming and writing. He has prepared several series including a BBC
television documentary on the life and works of Tchaikovsky and radio projects
for France-Musique highligting the life and works of composers such as Alexander
Scriabin, Johannes Brahms, Karol Szymanowski and Leos Janacek.
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