Valentina Lisitsa was born in Ukraine, but considers herself to be an American pianist. Even though she was educated in the former USSR, she does not declare herself an adept of the Russian school; she even speaks about the moment she began studying with a famous professor as if it were a battle. Very competitive, she was deceived by the 'arrangements' that are often made during competitions. She declares that she has always loved playing for the people, sharing, sending the joy that she feels when performing on the piano.

There were two worlds - that of the competitions and the piano classes, fully opposite to the chamber music and instrument accompaniment music classes in which she found this joy of sharing music with the rest. After she won the 'Murray Dranoff' International Two Piano Competition in Florida, in 1991 (with her husband), the pianist settled in the USA.

She became widely known due to her youtube posts (the free Chopin Studies), the complete Concerts for piano and orchestra by Sergei Rachmaninoff, released under the Decca logo in 2012, next to an album with sonnets by Charles Ives, for which she collaborated with the violinist Hilary Hahn. Also, let us not forget the Valentina Lisitsa Live at the Royal Albert Hall album, also released in 2012, which has her debut recital in the prestigious London hall.

Her project for the years to come is the recording of the complete Sonnets for piano by Beethoven - an endeavour she compares with the climbing of mount Everest, or flying out in space. She loves Bösendorfer pianos and the internet, that made her very popular. She posts her recitals and educational streams online.

Valentina Lisitsa is offering her art generously. This can also be seen in her last release - Philip Glass' music, accessed in ample unwindings, with a tendency for colour, repetitive, of course, in the well-known minimalistic approach, so appreciated by the new generations. We are talking about the two CDs released under the Decca logo on 5^th March, 2015. Containing parts from The Hours movie's soundtrack, transcribed for piano by Michael Riesman, the Metamorphosis cycle inspired by Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung, Mad Rush, a work of an 'indefinite length' made in 1979, evoking Dalai Lama on one of his trips to the US, and much more.

To some of us, music can exhaust its resources at some point, while for others it can keep an ambient touch. For those who choose to rediscover the amazing technical virtues of this pianist, Chopin and Rachmaninoff are still the perfect choices. But we should not lose sight of the expressiveness and accessiblity of endless landscapes, expectations and nuances born from simple harmonies - the Philip Glass touch that gives us a different sort of experience in the realm of musical reception. And the pianist's great quality is precisely that she can find variational resources at the level of expressiveness. 'Lisita in not only devoted to the music of contemporary minimalists. She is exemplary, perhaps definitive in her performance.' (Record Review)