Valentina Lisitsa is a Ukrainian pianist. She previously resided in North Carolina before moving to France, and then to Italy. She now shares her time between Moscow and Rome. Lisitsa is among the most frequently viewed pianists on YouTube – particularly her renderings of Romantic eravirtuoso piano composers, including Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Lisitsa independently launched her career on social media, without initially signing with a tour promoter or record company.
Life and career
Lisitsa was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1973. Her mother, also named Valentina, is a seamstress and her father, Evgeny, was an engineer. Her older brother Eugene died in 2009. She started playing the piano at the age of three, performing her first solo recital at the age of four. She is of Russian and Polish descent. Despite her early aptitude for music, her dream at that point was to become a professional chess player. Lisitsa attended the Lysenko music school and, later, the Kyiv Conservatory, where she and her future husband, Alexei Kuznetsoff, studied under Dr. Ludmilla Tsvierko. When Lisitsa met Kuznetsoff, she began to take music more seriously. In 1991, they won the first prize in The Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition in Miami, Florida. That same year, they moved to the United States to further their careers as concert pianists. In 1992 the couple married. Their New York debut was at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in 1995. Lisitsa posted her first YouTube video in 2007. Her set of Chopin etudes reached the number-one slot on Amazon's list of classical video recordings, and became the most-viewed online collection of Chopin etudes on YouTube. To advance her career, in 2010 Lisitsa and her husband put their life savings into recording a CD of Rachmaninoff concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra. In the spring of 2012, before her Royal Albert Hall debut, Lisitsa signed with Decca Records, who later released her Rachmaninoff CD set. By mid-2012 she had logged nearly 50 million views of her YouTube videos. Lisitsa has performed in various venues around the world, including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Benaroya Hall, Musikverein and the Royal Albert Hall. She is well known for her online recitals and practicing streams. She has also collaborated with violinist Hilary Hahn at various recital engagements.
Political views
On social media, Lisitsa has been vocal in her criticism of the Ukrainian government and support of pro-Russian separatists since the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine and the ensuing armed conflict. In April 2015, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra cancelled concerts with Lisitsa, citing her "provocative" online remarks on her Twitter account; the orchestra initially did not specify which tweets or other commentary it believed crossed a line. Later, on 8 April 2015, the CEO of Toronto Symphony, Jeff Melanson provided a PDF document of seven pages listing the most "offensive" tweets. Melanson alleged that the document would "help people understand why we made this decision, and understand as well how this is not a free speech issue, but rather an issue of someone practicing very intolerant and offensive expression through Twitter." In response, the Toronto Star criticized the orchestra's decision in an editorial, noting that, "Lisitsa was not invited to Toronto to discuss her provocative political views. She was scheduled to play the piano. And second, banning a musician for expressing "opinions that some believe to be offensive" shows an utter failure to grasp the concept of free speech." Lisitsa said that the orchestra threatened her if she spoke about the cancellation. According to Paul Grod, then president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress: "Ms. Lisitsa has been engaged in a long campaign on social media belittling, insulting and disparaging the people of Ukraine as they face direct military aggression at the hands of the Russian Federation". Grod elaborated that "Most disturbing are Ms. Lisitsa's false allegations that the government of Ukraine is "Nazi", and stating that the Government of Ukraine is setting up 'filtration camps.'" The New Jersey-based Ukrainian Weekly has described her postings as "anti-Ukraine hate speech." In response she commented that "satire and hyperbole the best literary tools to combat the lies".
Discography
Lisitsa has recorded six CDs for Audiofon Records, including three solo CDs and two discs of duets with her husband Alexei Kuznetsoff; a Gold CD for CiscoMusic label with cellist DeRosa; a duet recital on VAI label with violinist Ida Haendel; and DVDs of Frédéric Chopin's 24 Études and Schubert-Liszt Schwanengesang. Her recording of the four sonatas for violin and piano by composer Charles Ives, made with Hilary Hahn, was released in October 2011 on Deutsche Grammophon label. Her album Valentina Lisitsa Live at the Royal Albert Hall was released 2 July 2012. Lisitsa has reproduced several compositions by various artists, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven. Decca Records released her complete album of Rachmaninoff concertos in October 2012. An album of Liszt works was released in October 2013 on Decca label in 2 formats – CD and 12" LP which was cut unedited from analog tape. An even more recent album comprises a number of works of the composer and pianist Philip Glass. As of July 2019, her latest release on Decca records is a 10CD set titled Tchaikovsky: The Complete Solo Piano Works.
