Born in Moscow in 2005, Vsevolod Zavidov began his musical training at the age of 4 with Tamara Koloss, at the Central Music School of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, making his concert début at the Great Hall when he was 8.  He later studied with Prof. Tatiana Zelikman at the Gnessin School of Music.  Since the autumn of 2023 Vsevolod has been studying with Nelson Goerner at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, where he accelerated bachelor within one academic year and now is continuing at Masters’ level in Specialized Music Performance for Soloists.

In 2016, aged 10, he made his United States solo recital début at the Weill Recital Hall, at Carnegie Hall in New York, and the following year performed Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto with the Moscow Virtuosi Orchestra.  Since then he has performed in all the major venues of Russia, given recitals in Europe, toured the north-eastern United States and Japan. The Mariinsky Theatre invited him to take part in The Stars of the White Nights Festival and the Mariinsky International Piano Festival.  An important moment came in August 2023, when Vsevolod made his début on the main stage at the International Piano Festival at La Roque d'Anthéron following participation at the Verbier Academy.

Vsevolod Zavidov is the alumnus of Theo and Petra Lieven International Piano Foundation, and of the Verbier Festival Academy.  His approach to competitions is selective but very successful: he took First Prize at the 54th Dvořák International Concertino Praga in 2020 — enabling him to record a CD of the Chopin Études at Czech Radio — while also taking First Prize at the Gina Bachauer International Junior Piano Competition in Salt Lake City.

The press has not failed to spot Vsevolod even in his so far rare appearances, as won over by charm as by pianism. Talking of a the programme at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, including Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit and the three movements from Stravinsky’s Petroushka, ‘PianoForum Magazine’ noted “three different, dissimilar musical worlds, but all filled with lively action, freshness of perception, vivid in their images and multifaceted characters. It seemed that the virtuoso texture of the works performed posed no difficulties for the pianist: only music, only the creative process . . .” 

His appearance at La Roque d’Anthéron in 2023 was a decisive step.  Serge Martin, in ‘Le Soir’, spoke of “the real discovery this year remains the staggering Vsevolod Zavidov whose Rachmanninoff programme was as rich in emotion as in technical command.  At only 17 years old, this is a name to remember.”  Thus, also after La Roque ‘International Piano’ magazine chose Vsevolod as One-to-Watch and remarked especially that “his sensitivity, which includes vivid extremes of delicacy, goes well beyond the notes.”  The writer referenced Richter, Sofronitsky, Horowitz, Cherkassky and Rachmanninov as “the past from which he is the likely future.”  And in 2024 the BaslerZeitung ran an extensive feature on Vsevolod (on 29th March) heralding the arrival in Basel of a true Wunderkind.

For the 2024/25 season, Vsevolod will give his Geneva recital début at the Liszt Hall as part of Les Grands Interprètes series.  The season will also see him performing a concert tour in Japan.