'Left-Handed Pianist' Leon Fleisher Passes Away at Age 92

Photo by Yonhap News Agency

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] American pianist Leon Fleisher, known as the "Left-Handed Pianist," passed away on the 2nd (local time) at a hospice hospital in Baltimore, according to reports by The New York Times (NYT) and others. He was 92 years old.

He was born in 1928 in San Francisco, USA. He gained attention with his debut performance in 1944 as a teenager, collaborating with the New York Philharmonic. In 1952, he became the first American to win the Queen Elizabeth Competition, one of the world's three major competitions.

However, at the age of 37, when he was at the peak of his career, he was diagnosed with "muscle dystonia." This illness paralyzed his right hand, putting his career as a pianist in jeopardy. Undeterred, Fleisher challenged himself to conduct and developed a repertoire for the left hand, returning to the stage performing with his left hand.

In the mid-1990s, his right hand began to recover through Botox treatment, and he occasionally performed with both hands. Notably, his album "Two Hands" (released in 2004), recorded with both hands for the first time in 40 years, sold 100,000 copies in the United States alone, a rare achievement for a classical album.

He visited Korea in 2005 and performed works by Brahms and Schubert at the Seoul Arts Center.

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