Yoav Levanon

“an authentic musician, who has everything to become one of the major pianists of this century”
(Diapason Magazine)

Central to Yoav Levanon’s 2026/27 season is a series of orchestral engagements and re-invitations to Europe’s core recital stages. Orchestral highlights include his debut with Düsseldorfer Symphoniker led by Michael Sanderling, performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.2. This is followed closely by a trip to Scandinavia, where he performs Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 together with Turku Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Markus Stenz.His solo recital engagements are equally distinguished, featuring returns to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and London’s Wigmore Hall, among many others.

Previous appearances feature solo recitals at Brucknerhaus Linz, Tonhalle Zurich, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Lucerne Piano Festival and Wiener Konzerthaus. Additionally,recent invitations include debuts with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Constantinos Carydis and with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, alongside performances withthe Antwerp Symphony, Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra and at Lanaudière Festival in Québec.

At the beginning of 2021, Yoav Levanon took part in a filmed project with Daniel Barenboim and soon after signed an exclusive recording agreement with Warner Classics. His debut album A Monument for Beethoven with the label was released in May 2022. It attracted great attention from reviewers worldwide and garnered many excellent reviews. The year 2024 saw two major releases: Rachmaninoff: Etudes-Tableaux Op.39 – prompting Gramophone to place the recording ‘near to the top among tremendous versions of the past few decades’ – and Liszt: Piano Concertos & Totentanz, featuring Liszt’s Piano Concertos No.1 and 2, alongside other works by the composer, recorded with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester under the baton of chief conductor Michael Sanderling. In October 2025, Yoav Levanon added a significant milestone to his Warner Classics discography with the release of Liszt’s complete Transcendental Etudes.

Yoav Levanon first appeared on stage at the age of 4 and soon became a winner of his first National Piano Competition in Israel. He won his first Gold Medal at an International Piano Competition in the USA a year later and performed on the prestigious stage of Carnegie Hall in New York. Following his orchestral debut with the Israel Chamber Orchestra he went on to take part in the Tsinandali Festival, Georgia, where he played Mozart and Bach Concertos for Two Pianos and Orchestra with acclaimed pianist Sergei Babayan. Later he received the “Young Talent Award” of the Fundación Excelentia and performed in a ceremony at the National Auditorium Madrid in the presence of Queen Sofia. In 2019, Yoav appeared as one of the youngest pianists ever in the festival history of the renowned Verbier Festival and was celebrated a “discovery”. His debut solo recital, broadcast globally on medici.tv, gained the largest online audience of any of the 2019 Festival’s events.

Yoav Levanon was 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.

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Season Highlights

April 2025

Stadthalle Göttingen

Göttinger Symphonieorchester

Repertoire:

SERGEI RACHMANINOV: Concerto for Piano No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1

May 2025

Bodenseephilharmonie Konstanz

Repertoire:

SERGEI RACHMANINOV: Concerto for Piano No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

June 2025

Philharmonie Luxembourg

Repertoire:

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH arr SILOTI: Prelude in B minor (after Prelude in E minor, BWV 855a)

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH arr BUSONI: Chaconne from Partita No.2 for Violin in D Minor, BWV 1004

FREDERIC CHOPIN: Études, Op. 25

FRANZ LISZT: Etudes d’exécution transcendante, S139

July 2025

Oeiras International Piano Festival

Soloists:

SCHUMANNN: Canonic Studies for Pedal piano, Op. 56 (selection) arr. for solo piano

CHOPIN: Four Ballades

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: La Couperin (from Ordre 21ème de clavecin in E minor)

FRANCOIS COUPERIN: Le tic-toc-choc, ou Les maillotins (from Ordre 18ème de clavecin in F major)

ROBERT SCHUMANN: Studies in the Form of Canons for Organ or Pedal Piano, Op. 56

SERGEI RACHMANINOV: Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22

MAURICE RAVEL: Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn

MILY BALAKIREV: Islamey, fantaisie orientale

August 2025

Burghofspiele

Chopin Piano Concerto No.2 with hr-SO / Altinoglu

Liszt: La Campanella (aus: Grandes études de Paganini)

“Levanon is undaunted by Liszt’s Sonata, giving a performance of heroic sweep. A powerful player, the 18-year-old is nimble and articulate in the virtuoso passages, dramatic with the rhetorical flourishes, tender and lyrical when required. ”

BBC Music Magazine, June 2022

“You are captivated from the first to the last note by piano playing that is not only characterized by outstanding ease and dexterity on the keyboard, but also displays amazing virtuosity and an understanding of musical form which is even more sensational for an 18-year-old. Yoav Levanon captures every motif, every theme, every sentence in its own unique way and experiences a lively, imaginatively “organic” design. No tone, no phrase is out of context. The fact that this great music develops meaningfully and compellingly is seldom conveyed so well. Five stars with an exclamation mark! First class transparent sound from the Teldex studio in Berlin.”

(Fono Forum, May 2022)

“Very impressive playing, very contemplative — very mature playing. This sounds like a very thoughtful pianist who could be 20 years older, so that there is a genuine sense of engagement here, a sense of maturity that belies his age. And a very interesting programming idea to bring these pieces together.”

(BBC Radio 3 Record Review, May 2022)

“Above all, however, he succeeded in bringing the composer [Robert Schumann] and his moods to life with a play rich in contrasts”

(Bad Kissinger, 2021)

“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.”

(Marie-Aude Roux, Le Monde, 2020)

“an authentic musician, with innate and natural lyricism”

(Le Temps, 2019)