Vsevolod Zavidov | Liszt

This prize, which is awarded every two years to the best students attending a Swiss music academy, has launched international careers: take cellist Sol Gabetta and saxophonist Valentine Michaud, for example. This year, the Russian pianist Vsevolod Zavidov, who was born in 2005, will receive the Prix UBS Jeunes Solistes, with a value of 25,000 Swiss francs and a chance to make his Lucerne Festival debut. Zavidov, who is currently studying with Nelson Goerner at the Haute école de musique in Geneva, began his career as a child prodigy. He started playing the piano at the age of four, and when he was ten he gave his first recital at Carnegie Hall in New York. He won the Gina Bachauer International Junior Piano Competition in Salt Lake City and the Concertino Praga in 2020. Since then, Zavidov has toured the world, performing in Japan and causing a sensation at the La Roque d’Anthéron Piano Festival. International Piano praised the  “sensitivity and delicacy” of his playing in particular. Which will be on display — along with his perfect technique — at his Festival debut. Zavidov will perform Liszt’s 12 Transcendental Etudes, arguably the most technically challenging cycle in the entire repertoire.