Alexander Sandler is a specimen of St. Petersburg’s piano school. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1960. He undertook his early musical training at the Special Musical School for Talented Children with Professor Marina Wolf. He subsequently studied with
Professors Vladimir Nilsen and Galina Fedorova at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatorium in St. Petersburg. After graduating in 1986 Mr. Sandler was invited to become Professor at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatorium. Alexander Sandler has been a prizewinner at a number of competitions: the All-Russian Competition in Yaroslavl in 1988, and the 10th Paloma O`Shea International Competition in
Santander, Spain, in 1990. He made his concerto debut at the Grand Philharmonic Hall in 1978 with Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto. Since then he has wide concert activity in Russia and abroad – in Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, South Korea and Latvia. A. Sandler performs solo and with orchestras, and also in chamber ensembles. The repertoire of A. Sandler is very extensive. It includes many major works for piano ranging from Baroque time to the present day.
Alexander Sandler has participated in numerous musical festivals. He was a first performer of a number of compositions by S. Slonimsky, A. Nevolovich and others, participant of Russian premiere of Piano Sextet by K. Penderecki. He has recorded 4 CD with Beethoven and Gershwin’s concertos, also with duet music for four hands of Russians composers and compositions for two pianos by D. Shostakovich. And he made many TV and radio recorders. He is awarded with grant by the fond “Russian Performing Art” in 2003 and Prize by the St.Petersburg House of Music in 2008. A. Sandler is Honored Artist of Russian Federation and Honorary Member of Philharmonic Society of St. Petersburg. Alexander Sandler is one of the leading professors of St. Petersburg’s Conservatorium. He has taught a lot of concerting pianists, who have got many awards and prizes, including more than 25 first prizes in contests named after Skryabin in Moscow, Prokofiev in St. Petersburg, Maj Lind in Helsinki, Szymanowski and Liszt in Poland, Vitols in Riga, Monte Carlo Piano Masters, and also in New York, London, Bremen, Genova, San Sebastian, Seregno, Sofia and others. Among his students are Peter Laul, Alexander Pirojenko, Anton Lyakhovsky, Stanislav Soloviev, Pavel Raikerus, Yana Vassiljeva, Sergei Redkin (Bronze Prizewinner of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, 2015), Andrei Telkov, Elizaveta Ukrainskaya, Arsenii Mun, Alexandr Bolotin, Ilia Papoian. In 2007 his student Miroslav Kultyshev became the winner of the XIII International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Alexander Sandler worked as an inviting professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He is a permanent member of the jury of international piano competitions in St. Petersburg (Prokofiev), Moscow, Helsinki, Kiev (Horovitz), San Sebastian, Riga (Vitols). He has regular master classes in Russia, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia.