Anna Kravtchenko
Anna Kravtchenko (born 1976) is an Italian classical pianist. She won the Busoni competition in 1992 and has been a piano teacher at the " in Lugano since 2013. Early life. Kravtchenko began learning piano at age five; she recalls "the great joy of being able to construct a phrase in a certain way and discovering unique sounds". She studied in Italy at the " in Imola. Career. In 1991, she won first prize at the international competition "". A year later, at age 16, she won the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, which had not given its First Prize to  any pianist for five years. She since had an international concert career, and recorded works by Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt for Decca. Kravtchenko performed Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at the Berliner Philharmonie in 1994. In 1995, she toured Germany and Austria with the Israel Chamber Orchestra, playing Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto in Vienna in the hall of the Musikverein. In 2001, when she played Chopin's Piano Concerto in F minor with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Walter Weller, Geoffrey Norris of "The Telegraph" said she played it "in a way that  thoroughly warmed the heart and thrilled the senses", and explained: Kravtchenko won the International Web Concert Hall Competition in 2006. Since 2013, she has taught piano at the "" in Lugano, in the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino.