Mikhail Yanovitsky was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), where he began his study of the piano under the guidance of his mother. He graduated from the Leningrad Music School for Gifted Children (class of Marina Wolf) and then from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied with Mikhail Voskresensky. Yanovitsky continued to expand his piano career in the 1980s, making his debuts with the Leningrad Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, and the Leningrad Philharmonic.
He relocated to the US and, in 1991, won the Young Concert Artists Auditions, becoming their most frequently reengaged artist. While represented by Young Concert Artists, he played for the New York Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Gerald Schwartz, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas, and several other orchestras in the US, Europe, Asia, South Africa, and South America.
Yanovitsky has performed in thirty-four American states, including appearances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), Carnegie Recital Hall (New York), Convention Center (Philadelphia), Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall (San Francisco), Chicago Cultural Center, and Kennedy Center (Washington). He has also performed in fifteen European countries, as well as in Mexico, South Africa, Uruguay, Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and China.
Winning the Gina Bachauer Piano Graduate Scholarship in 1991 and 1992 allowed Yanovitsky to study with Seymour Lipkin at Juilliard School (New York). In 2002, he completed his Doctorate at Temple University under the tutelage of Harvey Wedeen, where he defended his thesis on Scriabin’s piano music. Several years later, the thesis was translated into Chinese, and published by a Shanghai music publisher under the title Early Piano Miniatures by Scriabin.
Yanovitsky has won numerous awards. In 1998, after winning Astral artistic Services in Philadelphia, he was awarded 1st prize at the Concerto Competition (Cantù, Italy) and subsequently appeared at the Sala Verdi (Milan). In 1996, he was a prize-winner at the International Piano Competition (Sydney, Australia). He won the ProPiano competition (New York) in 1994, and the East Hampton Competition in 1992.
Since 1994 he has been regularly performing in Russia, including the Saint-Petersburg Philharmonic Halls, the Rachmaninoff and Small Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, the Scriabin Museum in Moscow, and the House of Architects, as well as the new Mariinsky Concert Hall in Saint-Petersburg.
Currently, Dr. Yanovitsky teaches piano at Temple University.
Critical Acclaim