Anatol Ugorski – born on September 28, 1942, in Rubtsovsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union - was a classical pianist who grew up in what was then called Leningrad where he studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and the Conservatory of Leningrad. His preference for contemporary Western music by composers such as Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Pierre Boulez was unique at the time, but an incident at a 1968 concert where he performed Boulez’s music caused concern about his political leanings and he was sidelined for a decade. In 1982, he took a position as a professor at the Conservatory of Leningrad but when his daughter was the victim of antisemitic harassment in 1990, his family quickly relocated to East Berlin, Germany. He recorded Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, which was released in 1991 by Deutsche Grammophon and brought him to international attention. The following year, he began performing outside of Russia and appeared on stage with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Czech Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Chicago Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (the Netherlands), and others. Between 1992 and 2007, he also served as professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. His recorded catalog features many acclaimed releases including Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - Stravinsky: Three Movements from Petrushka (1992), Short Stories (1995), the Grammy-nominated Scriabin: Le Poème de l'Extase - Piano Concerto – Prométhée (1999), Shostakovich: Works for String Quartet & Piano Quintet (2016), and the 13 CD box set Anatol Ugorski - The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (2018). Anatol Ugorski died on September 5, 2023, at the age of 80.
