Pianist Boris Berezovsky has emerged as a prime modern representative of the pure Russian virtuoso tradition. In addition to music of a solo orientation, however, he has also been quite active as a chamber player. Berezovsky was born January 4, 1969 in Moscow; he is apparently unrelated to the late Russian business executive of the same name. He studied there with Alexander Satz and, as a student at the Moscow Conservatory, with Eliso Virsaladze. A major breakthrough came with Berezovsky's gold medal win at the 1990 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. By that time, however, the young pianist had already begun to make his mark abroad; his 1988 debut at Wigmore Hall was hailed by the Times of London for its "dazzling virtuosity and formidable power." His Tchaikovsky Competition performances included not only concerto repertory but chamber performances with Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma, and accompanying soprano Jessye Norman; some of these were issued by the Teldec label on a 1990 Winners' Gala album. The following year he made debuts in the U.S. (in Tchaikovsky victor Van Cliburn's hometown of Fort Worth, Texas) and France (at the Louvre museum). As a soloist, Berezovsky has specialized in the most difficult virtuoso repertory: Liszt, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and especially Nikolai Medtner; in 2006, he founded an International Medtner Festival in Moscow. He has recorded the Beethoven piano concertos with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard. Berezovsky has appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; his podium collaborators include Kurt Masur, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andrew Litton, Mikhail Pletnev, and Antonio Pappano. In the chamber music field he has performed and recorded with violinist Dmitri Makhtin and cellist Alexander Kniazev, with repertory including trios by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Shostakovich. Berezovsky's recorded output is large, comprising more than 40 albums as of the late 2010s. He has recorded mostly for the Apex, Teldec, Erato, Simax, and Mirare labels; for the latter, he issued a recording of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, and the Stravinsky Concerto for piano and wind instruments, both playing the solo part and conducting the State Academic Symphony of Russia Evgeny Svetlanov. ~ James Manheim, Rovi