Polina Osetinskaya

A rare musician to have made the transition from bona fide child prodigy to highly successful soloist, Polina Osetinskaya inspires awe and admiration from fellow musicians, concert presenters and audiences around the world. According to Gabriela Montero, “Polina belongs in the pantheon of greats […] She gave the most magical, masterful, sensitive, impassioned, pianistically sublime, honest, vulnerable and selfless recital I have ever heard”.

Profiled by the New York Times in 2023 for her immense courage in speaking out against the war in Ukraine, this Russian superstar is now banned entirely from performing in her native country, where she continues to live despite significant risks. A single mother of three, she tours actively, giving solo recitals, orchestral concerts and playing chamber music in venues such as the Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Barbican Centre, Sala Verdi, Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, Sydney Opera House, National Arts Center of Taiwan, and many others.

The current season takes Polina Osetinskaya to Paris, Bordeaux, Brussels, Vienna, London, Barcelona, Turin, Stockholm, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Singapore, San Francisco, Atlanta, St. Louis, Berkley and other cities around the world.

Born in Moscow in 1975, Polina Osetinskaya was identified as a prodigy at the age of five and started giving public performances at six years old. She made her orchestral debut with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and Saulius Sondeckis two years later, playing the Bach D-minor concerto, and became a nationally celebrated phenomenon at the age of 11, when she played the Mozart A-major concerto No. 23 at the legendary Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory Hall. Polina Osetinskaya completed her studies at the St. Petersburg and Moscow conservatories with Marina Wolf and Vera Gornostayeva respectively.

In 2023, Polina Osetinskaya published an autobiography “Farewell, Sadness”, telling the shocking story of her superstar childhood, her early artistic journey, and the emotional and physical price she had to pay for her extraordinary success. Given the pianist’s star profile in Russia, the book became a literary blockbuster.