An avid chamber musician, he served as co-artistic director of the Risor Festival of Chamber Music for nearly two decades, and was music director of California’s 2012 Ojai Music Festival.

Beethoven’s music figures prominently in Andsnes’s programming for 2012-13 and beyond. In September, 2012, Sony Classical will release the pianist’s label debut, The Beethoven Journey, on which he directs the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard in performances of the composer’s First and Third Piano Concertos. Recorded live in Prague.

As The Beethoven Journey project enters its second year Andsnes will perform with both the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics as well as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In Europe he will appear with the Munich and Royal Liverpool Philharmonics, the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester and Danish National Symphony. The project also takes him on tour to Japan with the Philharmonia, on two European tours with the MCO, and a third with the Mahler Youth Orchestra.

The Beethoven Journey is sponsored by the Stiftelsen Kristian Gerhard Jebsen, a Bergen-based foundation established to honour the memory of Kristian Gerhard Jebsen and his contribution to the Norwegian and international shipping business.

Additional highlights of Andsnes’s 2012-13 season include a ten-stop European solo recital tour with a program of Beethoven, Bartók, Liszt, and Chopin, and duo recital tours with two leading violinists: Christian Tetzlaff in Europe and Akiko Suwanai in Japan.

Leif Ove Andsnes’ discography comprises more than 30 solo, chamber and concerto releases, spanning repertoire from Bach to the present day and garnering eight Grammy nominations and five Gramophone Awards. Among his recent recordings are Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 with Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra and Schumann’s complete piano trios with violinist Christian Tetzlaff and his sister, cellist Tanja Tetzlaff. Among his honours are Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav, the Peer Gynt Prize and the Gilmore Artist Award.