Pianist Alexey Botvinov specializes in Bach and Rachmaninov, performs in ballet productions, and pursues novel ways of presenting classical music involving fusions of music with theater, dance, and even light shows. He is also the founder and artistic director of the Odessa Classics festival.

Botvinov was born on September 8, 1964, in Odesa (Odessa), Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. He studied the piano with Serafima Mogilevskaya and then at the Odessa Conservatory with Alexander Kardaschew. From 1987 to 1989, he moved to the Moscow Conservatory, studying with Vera Gornostayeva, and later benefited from lessons with and mentorship from Alexis Weissenberg. Various prizes put Botvinov on the international musical map, including the inaugural Rachmaninov Competition in Moscow, the eighth International Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany, and the inaugural Clara Schumann Competition in Düsseldorf, Germany. A breakthrough performance for Botvinov came in 1993 when he played the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, at the season-opening concert of the Tonhalle in Zürich, Switzerland, with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra under conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev.

Botvinov has gone on to perform in more than 45 countries. From 1994 to 1996, he lived in Düsseldorf, and there, he began a long collaboration with choreographer Heinz Spoerli, appearing in ballet productions based on Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, and Schumann's Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Between 1996 and 2012, he appeared in more than 20 of Spoerli's ballet productions, featuring music by composers from Bach to Alfred Schnittke. He also toured with the Zürich Ballet across Europe and as far afield as Canada, South Africa, and China. Botvinov appeared in a Goldberg Variations ballet at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2001, and he has performed the work in conventional concerts on many occasions. In concert, he also often performs music by Rachmaninov.

In 2009 and 2010, Botvinov served as the artistic director of the Odesa National Opera Theatre in Ukraine. He has spearheaded novel multimedia productions based on classical music, including Piano Light Show, Four Elements, Piano and Drums (featuring percussionist Burhan Öçal, and a synthesis of drama and classical music based on the book The Light and the Dark by Mikhail Shishkin. All of these productions found success in multiple countries. Botvinov was named a National Artist of Ukraine in 2015, and that year, he founded the Odessa Classics festival; he remains its president and artistic director, and the festival was held in 2022 in Thessaloniki, Greece, and Tallinn, Estonia. Botvinov continued to give traditional concerts, appearing in the late 2010s at such prestigious venues as the Philharmonie in Berin, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the Beethovenhaus in Bonn. In 2021, he backed violinist Daniel Hope on the album Schnittke: Works for violin and piano and the EP Music for Ukraine, the following year, on the Deutsche Grammophon label. ~ James Manheim, Rovi