Alim Beisembayev

Trained partly in Britain, pianist Alim Beisembayev is a fast-rising figure in the realm of virtuoso repertory. He won first prize at the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition in England. Beisembayev was born in the Kazakh capital of Almaty in 1998. He started playing the piano at age five at an Almaty music school, and by the time he was ten, it was decided that he should move abroad for further studies. In 2008, he won the Nutcracker International Televised Competition for Young Musicians in Moscow, Russia. Beisembayev enrolled at the Purcell School in suburban London, studying there with Rustem Hayroudinoff and later with Tessa Nicholson. While a student there, he began to make an international impact, taking third prize at the International Liszt Competition for Young Pianists in Weimar, Germany. In 2015, he won first prize at the Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, and he later performed with the Fort Worth Symphony. Other major early concerto performances came with the Svetlanov Orchestra of Moscow, the New Russia Orchestra, and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra. Beisembayev went on to London's Royal College of Music for a master's degree, studying with Vanessa Latarche. Beisembayev's Leeds International Piano Competition win in 2021, playing Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Andrew Manze opened doors for him as both a performer and a recording artist. His Leeds performances were issued on an album that year, and he was signed to the Warner Classics label and released an EP containing music by Scarlatti, Ligeti, and Ravel. Beisembayev has appeared with such groups as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the SWR Symphonieorchester in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2022, his debut full-length album, featuring Liszt's Transcendental Etudes, appeared on Warner Classics.
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