About the artist

Misha Galant began piano lessons at the age of six and continued to study for 17 years with his mother, Olya Katsman. Throughout high school, he also received guidance and coaching from Sharon Mann and Yoshikazu Nagai of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied piano with Joseph Kalichstein through the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange while also pursuing degrees in Data Science and Russian Literature. He currently studies with Tatiana Zelikman at the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow and with Yu-Jane Yang at Weber State University in Ogden, UT.

Misha gave his first full solo recital at age 12 and made his orchestral debut at age 13, performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Oakland East Bay Symphony. He has since performed with such orchestras as the Fort Worth Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, and the California Youth Symphony, joining the latter on tour in Austria and Italy for performances of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. He has also won numerous awards at piano competitions, including multiple prizes in 2015 at the first Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and at the Eastman Young Artists International Competition, the latter resulting in a four-year, full-tuition scholarship offer to attend the Eastman School of Music. He was inducted into the MTAC’s selective Young Artist Guild, through which he performs frequently as a recitalist around California, and, most recently, was chosen as one of two Gilmore Young Artists for 2020.

Additionally, Mr. Galant enjoys playing chamber music with his friends and seeks out opportunities to perform benefit concerts for retirement communities and charities. Beyond his musical and academic endeavors, Misha is an avid runner and swam for the Columbia University swim team, a D1 team that trains twenty hours per week.