Boris Emilevich Bloch |

Boris Bloch

After graduating from the Moscow State Conservatory. P. I. Tchaikovsky (class of Professor D. A. Bashkirov) and leaving the USSR in 1974, winning several international competitions (first prizes at the competition for young performers in New York (1976) and at the international competition named after Busoni in Bolzano (1978), as well as a silver medal at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv (1977)), Boris Bloch began an active concert career in various countries of the world. He has performed as soloist with American orchestras in Cleveland and Houston, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, Vancouver and St. Louis, Denver and New Orleans, Buffalo and others, collaborated with many outstanding conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Kirill Kondrashin, Philippe Antremont, Christophe Eschenbach, Alexander Lazarev, Alexander Dmitriev and many others.

In 1989, Bloch was awarded the gold medal of the International Listian Society in Vienna for her outstanding contribution to the development of the international Listiana.

Boris Bloch regularly takes part in various festivals, such as the Piano Festival in the Ruhr (Germany), the “Carinthian Summer” in Ossiach (Austria), the Mozart Festival in Salsomaggiore Terme, the Festival of Piano Rarities in Husum, the Summer Festival in Varna, The Russian School Piano Festival in Freiburg, the Rheingau Music Festival, the 1st Busoni Piano Festival in Bolzano, the Santander Festival and Liszt’s European Night in Weimar.

Some recordings of Boris Bloch on CD are considered references, in particular Liszt’s opera paraphrases, which received the Grand Prix du Disque from the Liszt Society in Budapest (1990). And his recording of piano works by M. Mussorgsky was awarded the Excellence Disque prize. In 2012, Boris Bloch’s new disc from the works of Franz Liszt won the Prix de Honeur in Budapest.

In 1995, Boris Bloch received a position as professor of piano at the Folkwang University College in Essen (Germany). He is a regular member of the juries of major piano competitions, and in 2006 was Artistic Director of the 1st Carl Bechstein International Piano Competition.

Maestro Bloch himself calls himself a representative of the Russian piano school, considering it the best in the world. He has a colossal repertoire, while the pianist prefers compositions “unplayed” – those that are not often heard on the stage.

Since 1991, Boris Bloch has also performed regularly as a conductor. In 1993 and 1995 he was the musical director of the Odessa Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. In 1994, he led the first tour of the opera troupe of this theater in Italy: in the Genoa Theater. Carla Felice with “The Virgin of Orleans” by P. Tchaikovsky and at a major music festival in Perugia with the oratorio “Christ on the Mount of Olives” by L. Beethoven and a symphony concert from the works of M. Mussorgsky.

In Moscow, Boris Bloch performed with the MSO under the direction of Pavel Kogan, with the State Academic Symphony Complex named after. E. Svetlanova conducted by M. Gorenstein (5th piano concerto by C. Saint-Saens was broadcast by the Kultura TV channel), with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra also conducted by M. Gorenstein (3rd piano concerto by P. Tchaikovsky, Mozart’s Coronation Concerto (No. 26) and Liszt-Busoni’s Spanish Rhapsody – a recording of this concerto has been released on DVD).

In 2011, in the year of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Franz Liszt, Boris Bloch performed in the main cities associated with the name of the great composer: Bayreuth, Weimar, as well as in the homeland of the master – the city of Riding. In October 2012, Boris Bloch played all three volumes of Years of Wanderings in one evening at the International Liszt Festival in Riding.