In this return engagement after his 2016 UMS debut, Igor Levit performs transcriptions of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and the Adagio from Mahler’s unfinished 10th symphony, as well as Paul Hindemith’s Suite “1922,” written for solo piano with several movements based on popular dances of the day, including the shimmy, Boston, and ragtime.

With an alert and critical mind, he places his art in the context of social events and understands it as inseparably linked to them. The Nizhny Novgorod native moved to Germany at age eight, and within a decade was the youngest participant in the International Arthur Rubinstein Competition, where he won silver, the special prize for chamber music, the audience prize, and the special prize for the best performance of contemporary pieces. In 2018, he was recognized with the Gilmore Artist Award, a major prize presented every four years to a classical pianist by the Gilmore Festival in Kalamazoo.