Sasha Stychkina

Sasha Stychkina combines serious musicianship with vibrant freshness and genuine charm. A young pianist like this gives me real optimism for the future of our art.

Kirill Gerstein

Whether playing Liszt or Haydn, this young pianist is sure to make a name for herself, one thinks as soon as one hears her take command of the keyboard. She has the tone, the touch and that natural authority that captivate the listener.

Bachtrack

The Berlin-based Greek-Russian pianist Sasha Stychkina is a young artist of exceptional promise. Born in December 2003 in Moscow and raised in a family of musicians and filmmakers, she began her musical education at an early age. From the age of nine, she studied at the Central Music School of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of Mira Marchenko. The intensive training and frequent public performances during her formative years quickly brought her talent to the fore.

Her early pianistic brilliance was reflected in numerous competition successes, including first prizes at the Tbilisi and Astana International Piano Competitions, as well as awards at the Krainev Competition in Moscow, the International Chopin Competition in China, and the Jeune Chopin Competition in Switzerland. In November 2019, at the age of fifteen, she became the youngest finalist and prizewinner in the history of the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Orchestre National de France and gaining widespread international recognition.

Following this achievement, Sasha Stychkina made a conscious decision to step back from the competition circuit in order to devote herself to a sustained period of artistic development. Since 2019, she has studied with Kirill Gerstein at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, where she is focusing on systematically expanding her solo and concert repertoire and refining her musical voice.

She has already appeared in major venues, including the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Barbican Centre in London, the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, and Wigmore Hall. Festival invitations have taken her to Verbier, among other places, where she was invited as a student in residence in 2018 and worked with Gábor Takács-Nagy, András Keller, and Frans Helmerson.

Recent engagements include performances at the Konzerthaus Berlin, where she performed Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and at the Kronberg Academy, collaborating with Gidon Kremer, Julia Hagen, and Kremerata Baltica in Lera Auerbach’s Triple Concerto. She has also made her debut with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Teddy Abrams, playing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Early recognition of her artistic promise also led to an invitation by Sir András Schiff to participate in his masterclass at Wigmore Hall in 2016, where she performed the complete Two-Part Inventions by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Season 2025/26

This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.