Yoav Levanon
Jasper Parrott
Sabine Frank
“an authentic musician, who has everything to become one of the major pianists of this century”
(Diapason Magazine)
Having started his professional piano education at the age of 3, Yoav Levanon, 17, has an impressive career of performances, winning competitions, receiving prestigious awards, creative excellence grants and playing with orchestras around the world.
At the beginning of 2021, Yoav took part in a filmed project with maestro Daniel Barenboim and soon after he signed an exclusive artist agreement with Warner Classics. Later during the year, he performed on some of the most prestigious stages and festivals in France, Germany, Israel, Latvia, and recently, with the Orchestre de la Swiss Romande in Geneve, Switzerland. Among his concerts, Yoav performed in the Louis Vuitton Foundation and Radio France Grand Auditorium, Paris, and the latest performance of this year takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia.
2020 started with a Solo Recital performance in a ‘Piano Summit’ with Martha Argerich at Schloss Elmau, Germany. Later during the year, Yoav performed at the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse. His performance was highly praised in a critic by Le Monde journal “Though Yoav Levanon is a very young person, he is already a great pianist. At 16, the Israeli is a meteor” and in Diapason “In spite of outstanding abilities, Yoav Levanon is not only a stunning virtuoso. His assertive interpretative choices already make him an authentic musician, who has everything to become one of the major pianists of this century.”
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In 2019, Yoav appeared as the youngest pianist in the festival history of the renowned Swiss Verbier Festival and was celebrated as a “discovery”. His debut Solo Recital, broadcast globally on medici.tv, gained the largest online audience of any of the 2019 Festival’s events. As Le Temps wrote: “Among the stars of Verbier, magical touch of Yoav Levanon, the little prince of the piano. Yoav Levanon made quite an impression at the opening weekend of the Verbier Festival … This is an authentic musician, innately and naturally lyrical … The Israeli pianist intuitively traces the architecture of a work and the melodic curve of a phrase … His playing is full of supple elegance …”
Soon after, Yoav took part in the Tsinandali Festival, Georgia, where he played Mozart and Bach Concertos for Two Pianos and Orchestra with acclaimed pianist Sergei Babayan. During the same year, 2019, Yoav received the ‘Young Talent Award’ of the Excelentia Foundation and performed in a ceremony at the National Auditorium Madrid with the presence of her majesty Queen Dona Sofia. Later on, he made his orchestral debut in Spain, on the same stage, performing Tchaikovsky concerto No.1 with Santa Cecilia Classic Orchestra.
During the year 2018, Yoav, then 13, performed the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in concerts titled “First Prize – the best young pianists in the music world”. Later during the year, he participated in the Verbier Festival Academy, Swiss, performed a solo recital at the Verdi Theatre, Italy, and took part at the Verbier Festival at Schloss Elmau, Germany, performing a solo recital and participating in a chamber music concert. Yoav was named as one of 10 extraordinary Israelis under the age of 16 who have “accomplished by the age of (less than) 16 more than many of us do in a lifetime”.
Being only 11 years old, Yoav performed the Chopin Piano Concerto No.1 on the prestigious San Carlo Theatre stage under the direction of the well-reputed maestro Daniel Oren. In a breathtaking performance, Yoav won the audience excitement with his delicate Chopin interpretations, with an astounding variety of timbre and fluent virtuosity.
Maestro Daniel Oren commented:
“The child is undoubtedly a genius. A unique talent. Yoav Levanon played in a way that pianists in their 40’s can’t play. This child’s depth is indescribable……the way he sings, the poetry of this boy is extraordinary, truly extraordinary! And he captivates the audience.”
At 10, Yoav became the First Prize winner of the Pnina Salzman Piano Competition and “Piano Forever” piano competition. At the age of 9, Yoav performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Raanana Symphonette Orchestra and received the Sharett Creative Excellence Grant from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.
When Yoav was 8, he opened the ‘International Summer Jewish Festival’ performing with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra. After the concert, that took place in Europe’s largest synagogue – Dohány Synagogue – in Budapest, an enthusiastic critic stated:
“…Yoav Levanon is not a child prodigy. He is an eight-year old artist of high caliber…”
Agnes Kory, MusicalCriticism.com
Shortly thereafter, Yoav was chosen to join a tour with the acclaimed Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra to perform Haydn’s Concerto under the baton of maestro Vladimir Spivakov who expressed his feelings by saying:
“Yoav was blessed by a touch of God”
Yoav appears on stage from the age of 4, at 5 he became a winner of his first National Piano Competition in Israel. At 6, Yoav won his first Gold Medal at an International Piano Competition in the USA and performed on the prestigious stage of the Carnegie Hall in New York. He made his orchestral debut with Israel Chamber Orchestra at the age of 7.
Yoav is guided by top piano professors and musicians in Israel and abroad. He is privileged to take part in the ‘Piano Program for Outstanding Young Pianists’ at the Jerusalem Music Center, working with the prestigious American concert pianist, Murray Perahia as well as working under the guidance of distinguished pianist Sir Andras Schiff in his artist performance studio at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.
“Above all, however, he succeeded in bringing the composer [Robert Schumann] and his moods to life with a play rich in contrasts”
“The Israeli pianist possesses a thundering energy at playing the piano that resonates, spinning under the starry dome of the choir as if he tries to blend into a torrential vertigo, to join some cosmic vibration.”
“an authentic musician, with innate and natural lyricism”
