Vladimir Ashkenazy has often been quoted as saying that for him music is indivisible. This conviction is borne out by his passionate engagement with so many different aspects of music-making, whether as conductor, piano recitalist or chamber musician or as the architect of large-scale projects encompassing the full range of musical activities.

In the years since Vladimir Ashkenazy first came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most renowned and revered pianists of out times, but as an artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities and continues to offer inspiration to music-lovers across the world.

Conducting has formed the largest part of his activities for the past 20 years and, following on from his period as Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 1998 to 2003, Ashkenazy took up the position of Music Director of NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo in September 2004. In Autumn 2005 he completed his second highly successful European Tour with them, including a televised concert at the Vienna Musikverein which marked the orchestra's debut in this prestigious venue.

Since 2000, Ashkenazy has been EUYO's Music Director and regularly conducts the Orchestra on world-wide tours including most recently those all over Europe, to South America, Kazakhstan, Japan, South Korea and China. Ashkenazy continues to have a warm and rewarding relationship with the Philharmonia and Iceland Symphony Orchestras as their Conductor Laureate. He also maintains strong links with a number of other major orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra (former Principal Guest Conductor), and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and Music Director 1988 -96), as well as making guest appearances with many other orchestras all around the world.

While conducting takes up a significant portion of his time each season, Ashkenazy continues to devote himself to the piano, directing Mozart and Beethoven concertos from the keyboard in perfomances in Europe and Asia, and continuing to build his extraordinarily comprehensive recording catalogue with releases such as the 1999 Grammy Award-winning Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Rautavaara's Piano Concerto No. 3 (a work which he commissioned) and Rachmaninov Transcriptions. Most recently released is his recording of Bach's Wohltemperierte Klavier.

Beyond his hectic and fulfilling performing schedule, Ashkenazy continues to be involved in some fascinating TV projects, often inspired by his passionate drive to ensure that serious music continues to have a platform in the mainstream media and is made available to as broad an audience as possible. This includes developing educational programmes such as Superteachers working with inner-city London school children, and a documentary based around his 'Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin' project.

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