Nikolai Arnoldovich Petrov

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Nikolai Arnoldovich Petrov (born April 14, 1943) is a Russian pianist.

Petrov was born in Moscow, the grandson of the operatic bass Vasily Rodionovich Petrov, and began learning the piano at the age of three. At the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory his teacher was Tatyana Kestner and in 1961 Petrov entered the class of Yakov Zak at the Conservatory itself. He subsequently won second prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas and won the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels.

Petrov continues to give regular performances in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory as well as touring widely and appearing at the major world venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Royal Festival Hall (London) and the Teatro Colón. Petrov's large repertoire includes more than fifty concertos and he has worked with many prominent conductors, including Mariss Jansons, Kirill Kondrashin, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Yevgeny Svetlanov and Yuri Temirkanov.

His awards include the Grande Médaille d'Or of the Académie Balzac, People's Artist of the USSR and the Russian State Prize. In 1998 he founded the Nikolai Petrov International Philanthropic Foundation.