“Katsnelson embraces the full potential of the instrument and offers performances that are oftentimes virtuosic, full-bodied and dramatic. But he is most impressive in works that require emotional repose and the kind of mystical simplicity that only the truest of virtuosi can achieve.”-Fanfare

Jacob Katsnelson has been on the piano faculty of the Moscow State Conservatoire since 2001. In 1998, he became one the youngest piano professors of the Gnessin School of Music in Moscow at the age of 23.

Katsnelson is the diploma-recipient at the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium (1999). He is the prize-winner at the International Piano Competition in Tbilisi (2001), the International Sviatoslav Richter Piano Competition (2005), the International Sergei Taneyev Chamber Ensemble Competition (1999) and the International Chamber Ensemble Competition in Trapani (Sicily).

Jacob has given recitals in Australia, Azerbaijan, Great Britain, Belgium, Bosnia, Hungary, Germany, The Netherlands, Greece, Georgia, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, France and Switzerland.

He regularly appears at the Music Festival of the Sviatoslav Richter Foundation in Tarusa, the Oleg Kagan Festival in Kreuth, the Utrecht Chamber Music Festival, the Sarajevo Winter festival in Sarajevo and the Return festival of chamber music in Moscow.

Kastnelson has appeared alongside Boris Brovtsyn, Janine Jansen, Maxim Rysanov, Boris Andrianov, Kristina Blaumane, Mischa Miasky, Lyudmila Belobragina, Marianna Shalitaeva, Vladamir Sokolov, Yevgeny Petrov and Martin Frost among other musicians.

He has performed with renowned conductors such as Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Verbitsky, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Richard Kaufman, Anatoly Levin, Lew Marquis, Vladimir Ponkin, Ilya Gaisin, Keith Clark, Yoon Kuk Lee and Thomas Sanderling.

Jacob graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire and completed a postgraduate study there under the guidance of Eliso Virsaladze, Tatiana Gaidamovich and Alexander Bonduriansky.

In 2007, he released a disc with cellist Kristina Blaumane on the Quartz label, and in 2008 he is featured in a recording of works by Brahms with violist Maxim Rysanov on the Onyx label.