The Istanbul Music Festival presents its 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award to Mischa Maisky, who is celebrating his 70th birthday this year. He will receive his award at the opening of his concert with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra on 2 June.
Mischa Maisky has the distinction of being the only cellist in the world to have studied with both Mstislav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky.
Born in Latvia, educated in Russia, after his repatriation to Israel, Mischa Maisky has been enthusiastically received in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York and Tokyo, along with the rest of the major music centers.
As an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist during the last 30 years he made well over 35 recordings with such orchestras as Vienna, Israel and Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Orpheus and Chamber Orchestra of Europe and others. His recordings have enjoyed worldwide critical acclaim and have been awarded five times the prestigious Record Academy Prize in Tokyo, three times Echo Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, Grand Prix du Disque in Paris and Diapason d’Or of the Year as well as the coveted Grammy nominations.
One of the highlights in his career was the year 2000 - it was mainly devoted to a worldwide Bach tour which included over 100 concerts. In order to express his deep admiration for this great composer, Mischa Maisky has recorded Bach's Solo Suites three times. Another highlight was certainly his trio performance in Carnegie Hall with Itzhak Perlman and Evgeny Kissin in December 2015.
Truly a world-class musician and regular guest in most major International Festivals he collaborated with conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Carlo Maria Giulini, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev and Gustavo Dudamel and his partnerships have included artists as Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu, Nelson Freire, Evgeny Kissin, Itzhak Perlman, Lang Lang, Peter Serkin, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Joshua Bell, Julian Rachlin and Janine Jansen to name just a few.
