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"She plays Beethoven's third Piano Concerto with a rapt intensity. Right at the beginning she achieves a small miracle ... a few chords, woven like a curtain about to go up on a quiet paradise in waiting. She performs the piece with a restrained voice, as if telling a story. She is reminiscent of the young Clara Haskil. This is how Anna Gourari won the Clara Schumann Competition." Thus Die Zeit reported the final concert of a competition in which Anna Gourari was awarded first prize by a distinguished jury including Martha Argerich, Joachim Kaiser, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nelson Freire and Alexis Weissenberg, whom she had won over by the power of her "almost mystical" playing.

  Anna Gourari is long since firmly established as an outstanding pianist and one of the most exceptional personalities of her generation. Her playing has been described as "technically perfect" and "dazzling", "reminiscent of the young Martha Argerich", with an "almost perfect blend of fiery attack and poetic magic", performing "with pure intellectual freedom". As the "individualist of the 21st century" she defies any attempt to categorize her: her personal pianistic language finds its magical expression in the fascinating aura that surrounds her.

  Anna Gourari was born in Kazan, Russia. She began piano lessons at the age of five, and from 1979 attended a special school for gifted children in her home town, studying with Kira Shashkina, the teacher of Mikhail Pletnev, and giving her first recital in the same year. Later she also received lessons from Vera Gornostaewa, a pupil of Neuhaus and teacher of Ivo Pogorelich. In 1990 Anna Gourari moved to Germany to study at the Munich Hochschule für Musik with Ludwig Hoffmann and Gitti Pirner. Her first piano recital in Germany took place in 1991 and her Paris debut followed a year later.

  She has won several distinctions including the first prizes at the Kabalevsky Competition in Russia (1986) and the first International Chopin Competition in Gottingen (1990), a bursary from the "Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes", the "Staatliche Förderungspreis" for young musicians (2000), the ECHO Klassik 2000 prize for promising young artists for her Scriabin album and the ECHO Klassik 2001 prize for "Instrumentalist of the year" for her recording of two piano concertos by Richard Strauss (365 712). Since March 2000 Anna Gourari has been under exclusive contract with KOCH Classics. In October 2001 KOCH Classics will release her recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, 32 Variations in C Minor and Piano Sonata "Pathétique" (KOCH Classics)

  Anna Gourari performs at all the major musical venues and is regularly invited to perform with leading orchestras and at international festivals. Her triumphant progress across the international stage is reflected by Europe-wide concert tours and collaboration with eminent conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Sir Colin Davis and Ivan Fischer. Her special interest in 20th?century music is shown in her numerous recordings of works by Prokofiev, Zemlinsky, Hindemith, Bartok and Poulenc, and by contemporary composers such as Bialas, Hiller, Gubaidulina and Shchedrin.

"She seems a throwback in many ways, with a very physical, even visceral quality to her music that conjures the sound of such golden-age figures as Horovitz and Cortot, with a naturalness that seems to have always been there. (...) Gourari's technique and tone are excellent (...) The marvel of this playing is the combination of intuitive pacing, propulsive phrasing, and rhythmic inflection that makes this music spring to life with explosive power. The melding of physicality and thoughtfulness arises again and again in this playing; every note has a purpose. (...) In the person of Anna Gourari, the great Russian school of pianism lives on." (FANFARE (USA), Jan./Feb. 2002)