Leonid Vintskevich is a jazz pianist, composer, music educator, organizer, and a public activist who has had a major influence on the development of Russian jazz. He is the founder and art director of the international festival “Jazz Province”. He holds the titles of Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation (1995), Honoured Art Worker of the Russian Federation (2005), and is awarded with the Order of Friendship (2019).
Leonid Vintskevich is an active concert pianist who regularly takes part in major international jazz festivals in Europe, Russia, America, the CIS, such as Prague International Jazz Festival, Jazzbuehne in Berlin, Jazztage in Leipzig, North Sea Jazz Festival, Jazz in Europe, Baltic Jazz, Jazz Kaar, Turku Jazz Festival, Kaamus Jazz, Silda Jazz, Jazz Stroom, Vilas Jazz Blues, Vilnius Jazz Festival, Jazz Birstonas Festival, and many others. He is one of the original jazz composers who focus on European improvisation music and the 20th century classical music. The pianist’s virtuosity and inventiveness, his unorthodox “explosive” way of thinking, his powerful playing, his passion, his deep-Russian mindset, and Herculean scale have all been highly acclaimed by audiences and critics alike.
Since 1996 Leonid Vintskevich has been the inspirer, organiser and art director of a unique project — the annual international festival “Jazz Province” whose geography extends from Krasnoyarsk to Krasnodar. It is about more than 25 cities, 30 days of touring in the best concert halls of Central Russia, the Volga region, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and more than 100 outstanding musicians from Russia and abroad each year (in total, over the years the festival has been attended by some 2500 artists). In 2013, the Festival and Leonid Vintskevich himself were awarded the prestigious Russian Federation Culture & Art Prize “For Popularisation of Jazz and the Creation and Organization of the Annual International Festival “Jazz Province”.
