Born in 1971, Evgeny Kissin began playing his first notes and improvising on the old family piano at the age of two. Aged 6, he was admitted to the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow and studied with Anna Pavlovna Kantor, who would be his only teacher. A child prodigy, he made his debut at the age of ten in Mozart's Piano Concerto K 466 and gave his first recital at the age of eleven.

Aged twelve, he performed Chopin's piano concertos with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dmitri Kitayenko. In 1988, he played with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Herbert von Karajan, and made his debut in London. In 1990, he returned to the United Kingdom (BBC Proms in London) and gave his first concert in the United States, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. Alongside this, he opened the Carnegie Hall's hundredth season in New York with a recital. In 1997, he was the first musician in the history of the BBC Proms in London to be invited to give a solo recital at the Royal Albert Hall. He set an audience record by attracting the biggest crowd ever seen at the Proms, and rewarded the audience with seven encores.

Since then, Evgeny Kissin has performed on the biggest international stages and played with the world’s greatest orchestras under the direction of such acclaimed conductors as Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnanyi, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Lawrence Foster, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georg Solti, Sir Colin Davis and Zubin MehtaHall.

Throughout his career, Evgeny Kissin has won many awards, among others the Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russia’s culture, one of the highest cultural honors to be awarded in the Russian Republic. In 2005 he was awarded an Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize.

Evgeny Kissin has received honorary doctorate degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (in 2010), the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Hong Kong and Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheva.

His impressive discography of recitals and concertos, featuring works by Chopin, Scriabin, Brahms, Medtner, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Mozart, Beethoven and Prokofiev, released by RCA Red Seal, BMG/RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics and Sony, has won many awards (Grammy Awards, Diapason d’Or, Edison Klassiek, Echo Klassik…).

In 2017, after 25 years of absence, Evgeny Kissin signed a new exclusive contract with his historic publisher, Deutsche Grammophon. His Beethoven double disc, consisting of pieces recorded live during the last ten years, came out in August 2017.

Also a composer, Evgeny Kissin wrote “The String Quartet”, which was performed in 2016 by the Kopelman Quartet and in July 2017 by the Modigliani Quartet at the Rencontres musicales d'Evian.