Having received his first professional piano lessons only at the age of 16 Leif Ove Andsnes rapidly achieved success and became one of the leading performers of our days. Today he is a six-time winner of the British Gramophone magazine Award and an eight-time Grammy nominee, not so long ago he was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of fame, and elected the Honorary doctor of the Juilliard school in New York and the Norwegian University in Bergen.

He gave more than 230 concerts of Beethoven's piano works in 108 cities in 27 countries during one of the musician’s most ambitious projects - "Beethoven's journey". This series of performance recordings, released by Sony Classical label, brought the pianist many awards and titles.

The beginning of this season is held for Leif Ove Andsnes under the sign of a Piano Concerto by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg – one of the most popular in the world of piano scores. The pianist will perform this work at the opening of the "Arts Square" Festival in St. Petersburg.

"I've been playing Grieg since I was young: it's hard for a Norwegian musician to avoid it” - said Leif Ove Andsnes in an interview to Göteborgs Posten in September. – This music makes you feel like you've come home, and I think it's not just Norwegians who feel it. It feels like Grieg wants to say through it: "I cannot build palaces like Bach or Handel, but I can build small dwellings where people can feel at home." I have a reputation as a pianist who plays lots of Grieg, but that's not quite true. I actually performed his Concert a lot early in my career – about 60 times in the first few years. But after age of 24, I stopped."

XX International winter «Arts Square» Festival will take place in St. Petersburg on December 14 - 24. The audience will meet the stars of the world performing arts, including conductors Yuri Temirkanov and Charles Dutoit, ten-time Grammy winner vocal ensemble "Take 6", pianists Leif Ove Andsnes, Elisso Virsaladze, Boris Berezovsky, violinists Joshua Bell, Sergey Krylov and other famous performers.

The Festival, founded by Yuri Temirkanov in 1999, brings together not only different types of arts but also cultural institutions located around the Arts Square that gave the name to the Festival. Among the participants: the Russian Museum, Mikhailovsky Theatre, Musical Comedy Theatre, Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ (Church of the Savior on Blood). The main part of the program is held in the halls of the D.D. Shostakovich State Academic Philharmonia of St. Petersburg.