Pianist. He shot to fame at age 19 when he won the first International Chopin Piano Competition in 1927, and went on to become one of the finest Soviet keyboard artists of his time. Aram Khachaturian wrote his Piano Concerto (1937) for him. Lev Nikolayevich Oborin was born in Moscow, where he studied at the Gnessin School and at the Conservatory. The Chopin Competition assured him global celebrity as a soloist, confirmed by a handful of acclaimed appearances in Poland and Germany, but he chose to remain in the USSR and develop parallel careers as a chamber musician and teacher. In 1936 he began performing duet recitals with violinist David Oistrakh, and in 1941 they formed a trio with cellist Sviatoslav Knushevitsky that lasted until Knushevitsky's death in 1963. After World War II he frequently concertized in Europe and in 1963 he toured the United States. His repertory leaned heavily towards Russian music but also encompassed Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and the German Romantics. He suffered a heart attack in 1957 but this barely made a dent in his hectic performing schedule. A sensitive musician with a lucid, no-nonsense technique, Oborin never made quite a splash as some of his Soviet rivals (Richter, Gilels), but he was a virtuoso of the front rank. At his 60th birthday concert in Moscow he pulled off the marathon feat of playing three concertos: the Chopin Second, Rachmaninoff Second, and Prokofiev Third. Some of his live performances were captured on film and video. Among the honors he received were the Order of Lenin (1946) and People's Artist of the USSR (1964). From 1929 until his death he taught piano at the Moscow Conservatory; Vladimir Ashkenazy emerged as his greatest student. Oborin's recordings pretty well cover his range, from the Khachaturian concerto (with the composer conducting) to the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Oistrakh.