Nikita Shestakov, 20 years old Belorussian pianist and composer, began studying music at 7, but professionally at the age of 8 in the Republican Musical Gymnasium-College at the Belarussian State Academy of Music.
He studied piano with Larisa Pavlovna Vasilyeva, who is unfortunately not with us anymore, and during the period of 2017-2018 with Marina Gennadyevna Romeyko. His chamber music teachers were I. V. Galochkina, Michail Radunski, Vladimir Perlin. He also performed with and was part of the « Ensemble of soloists » created and directed by Vladimir Perlin.
Since september 2018 Nikita is studying in Musica Mundi School. Jacques Rouvier and Hagit Hassid-Kerbel are his piano teachers, chamber music Nikita studies with Leonid Kerbel. Composition Nikita studied mostly by himself, and in 2021 he followed some lessons of composition class of Jan Van Landegem, a composition professor in Musica Mundi school. Nikita also loves to improvise, he views improvisation as a subleme method of expression of human feelings and ideas, and also as a method of practice that allows to improve your performing and composition skills at once, connecting it with a feeling of a great pleasure and freshness, which is tremendesly important in his usual practice routine.
Nikita participated in musical competitions as pianist and as a composer. Names of these competitions and prizes that he won: IX International Competition of Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz, 2nd prize (orchestra nomination) and 3rd prize (solo nomination) (Kiev, Ukraine, 2011); XIII International Piano Competition, 1 prize (Paris, France, 2013); XXI International Competition of Young Performers « Eugene Coka », 2nd prize (Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, 2015), III international festival and competition of young pianists « Bartolomeo Christofori », 3rd prize (St. Petersburg, Russia, 2015); Winner of the first national children’s television competition-show of the belorussian TV channel ONT – « Talent Krainy » (Minsk, Belarus, 2016); IX International competition of performers and composers « Romanticism: its origins and beyond » in memory of Elena Gnassina, 3rd prize (nomination Composer-performer) (Moscow, Russia).
Nikita participated in Musical festivals, such as Musica Mundi Chamber Music Festival (2018 and 2019 editions), IV Children’s Music Academy of CIS and Baltic States under the patronage of Yuri Bashmet (Samara, Russian Federation, 2014); XXIX Musical Festival of classical music « January Musical Parties » (Brest, Belarus, 2017), He was invited to Jerome Perno’s « Freshly Composed » in 2018 and performed his own piano pieces.
Nikita leads concert activity as a soloist,and holds a big repertoire of classical music, from baroque to modern period. He gave concerts in halls of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Belgium and France, most important are Belarussian State Philharmonic, Brest Academic Drama Theater named after Lenin Komsomol of Belarus, Cortot Hall (Paris, France), Musica Mundi « Bach Concert Hall » (Waterloo, Belgium), Gnessin Russian Academy of Music. Nikita is not only passionate about classical music, but also jazz. At the end of July this year he gave his first concert as not only pianist and composer, but also improviser, performing jazz and classical improvisations.