Nikolai Petrov

Russian Classical Pianist

Nikolai Petrov (1943–2011) was a Russian pianist, Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1975), People's Artist of the RSFSR (1986) and USSR (1991). Nikolai was son of the cellist Arnold Ferkelman (1914–92), nephew of the composer Moisey Ferkelman (1908–74) and grandson of opera bass Vassili Petrov. In 1961 he graduated from musical high school in the class of teacher T. Kestner, the he entered the Moscow Conservatory to study with Jakov Zak. Nikolai Petrov won the second prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (1962) in Fort Worth, Texas and Queen Elisabeth Competition (1964) in Brussels. The Belgian paper Soir called him a "virtuoso of the piano". His awards included Grande Médaille d'Or from the Académie Balzac and the Russian State Prize (1993). After receiving his PhD degree in 1968, Nikolai Petrov started touring. He gave regular performances in the Grand Hall Of The Moscow Conservatoire and toured internationally, appearing at Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Royal Festival Hall and Teatro Colón with many prominent conductors, including Mariss Jansons, Kiril Kondrashin, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Evgeni Svetlanov and Yuri Temirkanov. Petrov premiered works by Aram Khatchaturian, Tikhon Khrennikov, Rodion Shchedrin, and Andrey Eshpai.