Valentina Lisitsa is a Ukrainian-born classical pianist. Born into a family of non-musicians in Kiev, Ukraine, she started playing piano at the age of three, performing her first solo recital only a year later. Despite her early disposition to music, her dream at that point was to become a professional chess player. She attended the Lysenko music school for Gifted Children and, later, Kiev Conservatory. She currently lives in the United States and performs in many prestigious concert venues worldwide. To date, Valentina has recorded 6 Cds for Audiofon Records (two of which are in duet with Alexei Kuznetsoff, her husband), a Gold CD for CiscoMusic label (with cellist De Rosa), a duet recital with violinist Ida Haendel on VAI label, DVDs of Frédéric Chopin's 24 Etudes, Schubert-Liszt Schwanengesang, and her most recent DVD titled Black and Pink. Valentina Lisitsa caused a political controversy in April 2015 over a number of tweets that resulted in dropping her from cheduled concerts with the Toronto Symphony. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.