Andrei Gavrilov was born into a multinational family of artists in Moscow. His father was Vladimir Gavrilov, one of the eminent Russian painters during the middle of the 20th century. His mother was the Armenian pianist Assanetta Eguiserian, who gave Gavrilov his first piano lessons at age 2. In 1961 he was inducted at the Moscow Central Music School and became a student of Tatyana Kestner. He completed his studies with Lev Naumov, at the Moscow Conservatory. By the age of 18, he won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1974 and rose to international fame when, at the Salzburg Festival, he substituted for Sviatoslav Richter. Until 1979, Gavrilov performed in all the major music centers of the world performing up to 90 concerts a year, while continuing his studies at the university.

In 1979, at the first peak of Gavrilov's career, Herbert Karajan offered recordings of all the Rachmaninoff concertos. Recordings were scheduled in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic for the 2nd concerto, but Gavrilov did not appear for the rehearsals. It was discovered that due to his critical remarks about the Soviet regime, the head of the KGB and later General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Yuri Andropov, with the approval of Leonid Brezhnev, had seized Gavrilov's passport and the flight ticket and cut his telephone line. Later, Gavrilov was put under mandatory house arrest and at times he was committed to psychiatric wards.

Only through Mikhail Gorbachev's eventual intervention did this end in 1984, and Gavrilov received a "free passport", so that he could perform again in the West without having to obtain political asylum. In the following years, he lived in London and in Bad Camberg near Wiesbaden, Germany from 1989.

In 1993, he retired from the active cultural scene, cancelled concerts and did not make any further studio recordings. The planned two-year sabbatical eventually grew to eight years. In 2001 he moved to Lucerne, Switzerland and resumed concertizing in the 2001/02 season. Since August 2008 he has been living with his second wife and their son in Kanton Zürich.

In 2012 Andrei Gavrilov held master classes for the first time, in Madrid and later in London. In 2013 he completed writing his three volume auto biography, the first volume of which was published in March and April 2014. He also made his first new recording for 20 years.
Source: Wikipedia

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