The New York Times calls Leif Ove Andsnes “a pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight“ and the Wall Street Journal names him “one of the most gifted musicians of his generation”. 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 Festival of Chamber Music for nearly two decades, and served as music director of California’s Ojai Music Festival in 2012.

Two concertos figure prominently in Andsnes’s 2024-25 season. After recent performances of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with ensembles including the New York Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, he reprises the work with Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and on tour with the Oslo Philharmonic. Similarly, after recent accounts of Rachmaninov’s Third with ensembles including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Orchestre de Paris, he performs it at Baden-Baden’s Easter Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic, on a North European tour with Italy’s Grandhôtel Orchestra Toblach, 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 Concerto, the Barcelona Symphony for a pairing of Haydn and Franck, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra for Debussy’s Fantaisie at the Hamburg International Festival. With a solo program combining Chopin’s 24 Preludes with sonatas by Norwegians Grieg and Geirr Tveitt, he embarks on an extensive transatlantic recital tour, featuring dates at New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall. The latter forms part of a season-long residency at the British venue, to which he returns for chamber collaborations with fellow pianist Bertrand Chamayou and with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO), as the culmination of their European tour.

As the MCO’s first Artistic Partner, Andsnes has already led the ensemble from the keyboard in two major, multi-season projects. In “Mozart Momentum 1785/86,” they explored one of the most creative and seminal periods of the composer’s career with live accounts of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20–24 at London’s BBC Proms and other key European venues, as well as recorded ones for Sony Classical. This followed the success of “The Beethoven Journey.” An epic four-season focus on the composer’s music for piano and orchestra, which took the pianist to 108 cities in 27 countries for more than 230 live performances. The project was chronicled in the documentary Concerto – A Beethoven Journey (2016), and Andsnes’s partnership with the MCO was captured on the hit Sony Classical three-volume series The Beethoven Journey. The first volume was named iTunes’ Best Instrumental Album of 2012 and awarded Belgium’s Prix Caecilia, the second recognized with BBC Music’s coveted “2015 Recording of the Year Award,” and the complete series chosen as one of the “Best of 2014” by the New York Times.

Andsnes’s discography comprises more than 50 titles – solo, chamber, and concerto releases, many of them bestsellers – spanning repertoire from the Baroque to the present day. He has been nominated for eleven Grammys and his many international prizes include seven Gramophone Awards. The Complete Warner Classics Edition 1990-2010, a 36-CD retrospective of his EMI and Virgin recordings, was released to acclaim in 2023. In addition to The Beethoven Journey and MM 1785/86, his recent Sony Classical releases include Dvořák’s unjustly neglected piano cycle Poetic Tone Pictures, Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes, and the Billboard best-selling Sibelius, all recorded for Sony; Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring & other works for two pianos four hands, recorded with Marc-André Hamelin for Hyperion; and Schumann: Liederkreis & Kernerlieder, recorded with Matthias Goerne for Harmonia Mundi. Both the Hamelin and Goerne collaborations were nominated for Grammy Awards.

Andsnes has received Norway’s distinguished honor, Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav as well as the prestigious Peer Gynt Prize. He is also the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award and the Gilmore Artist Award. He was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2013 and has received an honorary doctorates from New York’s Juilliard School and Norway’s Universities of Bergen and Oslo.

Born in Karmøy, Norway in 1970 Leif Ove Andsnes studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory under the renowned Czech professor Jirí Hlinka. He also received invaluable advice from the Belgian piano teacher Jacques de Tiège who, like Hlinka, has greatly influenced his style and philosophy of playing. He is currently an Artistic Adviser for the Prof. Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy in Bergen where he gives annual masterclasses. Andsnes lives in Bergen with his family of three children.