Vladimir Feltsman is a Russian American classical pianist. Feltsman debuted with the Moscow Philharmonic at age 11. He studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky, Moscow, and Leningrad Conservatories and went on to win the Grand Prix at the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris. In 1979, because of his growing discontent with the official Soviet ideology and rigid governmental control of the arts, Feltsman applied for an exit visa from the Soviet Union. In response, he was immediately banned from performing in public. After eight years of struggle and virtual artistic exile, he was finally granted permission to leave the Soviet Union. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1987, Vladimir Feltsman was warmly greeted at the White House, where he performed his very first concert in North America. That same year his debut at Carnegie Hall established him as a major pianist on the American scene. Feltsman teaches at the Mannes College The New School for Music and the State University of New York New Paltz, where he is the founder and Artistic Director of the International Festival-Institute Piano Summer. Feltsman, who became a U.S. citizen in 1995, lives in upstate New York. [More at Wikipedia]

January 8th, 1952 in Moscow (Age 72)