Ivo Pogorelich

The "enfant terrible" of the piano, sometimes to his own detriment, Ivo Pogorelich is nonetheless one of its most brilliant exponents. Born in Belgrade (then in Yugoslavia) in 1958, he honed his precocious talent for the instrument at the Moscow Conservatory and made his international debut in 1981, after an incident at the Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where his elimination provoked the indignation of Martha Argerich. Regarded as an exceptional performer right from his first recordings (Chopin, Beethoven, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Liszt, Scarlatti), the keyboard virtuoso developed a personal, spirited style that won him critical and public acclaim. Active until 1996, Ivo Pogorelich retired from the stage on the death of his wife, devoting his time to his mission as Unesco ambassador for social aid. Gradually returning to the stage on a regular basis since 2013, his recordings are collected in the 14-CD boxed set Complete Recordings, released in 2015.