Mischa and Lily Maisky at the Shriver Hall

Mischa and Lily Maisky return to Shriver Hall on Sunday, December 6, at 5:30pm, following their hugely successful 2013 recital. Balancing delicacy, lyricism, and sheer drama, their program includes Brahms' darkly hued and passionate E-minor Sonata, works by Schumann, Webern, Messiaen, and culminates in Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango.

Mischa Maisky has the distinction of being the only cellist in the world to have studied with two legends of the cello—Mstislav Rostropovich in 1963 and Gregor Piatigorsky in 1974.  Rostropovich lauded Maisky as “one of the most outstanding talents of the younger generation of cellists.  His playing combines poetry and exquisite delicacy with great temperament and brilliant technique.”  In 1973, Maisky won the Cassado Competition in Florence and made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony.  After the concert, an anonymous admirer gave him an 18th-century Montagnana cello, which he still plays today.

Pianist Lily Maisky, Mischa's daughter, was born in Paris in 1987, soon after moved to Brussels, and began studying the piano at age four with Lyl Tiempo.  She was a pupil at the Purcell School of Music from 2001 to 2004 and participated in master classes with such artists as Martha Argerich, Dmitri Bashkirov, Joseph Kalichstein, and Marielle Labeque.  In 1997, at age ten, Maisky’s first public performance took place at Carnegie Hall.  Concert appearances since have taken her throughout Europe and Asia, and she has been invited to renowned festivals such as the Freiburg Zelt Music Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Verbier Festival, the Franz Liszt Festival in Austria, Julian Rachlin and Friends in Dubrovnik, and Rencontres de Bel Air in France.