Ilya Kazantsev, has performed as recitalist and soloist with orchestra in Russia at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, United States, Ukraine, Belarus, Slovenia, Italy and Germany. Mr. Kazantsev made his sold out solo début at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in November 2007, as a winner of the Nadia Reisenberg Piano Award at Mannes College. Among his many other awards and honors, he received first prizes at the 1998 Nikolai Rubinstein International Competition (Paris), the 2001 International Festival-Competition (Grodno, Belarus) and the 2005 Five Towns Competition (Long Island, NY). He was an award winner at the 2000 International Chopin Competition (Moscow, Russia), and the 2007 and 2008 World Piano Competition (Cincinnati). As a chamber musician Ilya won the 2005 Trinity Church Concert Series Award (NY) as well as the 2008 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in Boston. As a solo recitalist, he has presented concerts in Russia at the Moscow Conservatory Conservatorys Great, Small, Rachmaninov Halls the St. Petersburg Philarmonia Recital Hall, and in New York at CAMI and Steinway Halls. Mr.Kazantsev has performed at the 2006 International Academy of Music Festival in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (Italy), and has participated in the Virtuozi 2000 Festival in St. Petersburg, and the 1999 International Music Festival in Petrozavodsk. Ilya has participated in master classes presented by such artists as Igor Lazko, Peter Eiher, Earl Wild, Richard Goode, Marcel Baudet, Edward Aldwell, Efim Bronfman, Phillipe Entremont and Menahem Pressler as well as Jay Gotlieb, Mark Ponthus and legendary composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who praised Mr. Kazantsev for his thoughtful performance of composer's Douze Notations. Mr. Kazantsev has presented numerous premieres of works by contemporary American, Russian and Eastern European composers, some of which have been dedicated to him. lya began his music studies at the age of seven. At the age of ten he was accepted at the Central Music School at the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory in his native Moscow as a student of Professor Valeriy Pyasetsky. Subsequently, he came to New York to study at Mannes, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree in 2005, his Master of Music degree in 2007, and is presently a Professional Studies Diploma candidate, studying with Dr. Arkady Aronov.