"Mr. Ovchinnikov's fingers flickered and darted through Liszt's Six Studies on Paganini's Themes. Great walls of sonority rose and fell while incredible complexities of fingering were accomplished with a seemingly effortless ease. Then came an equally stunning performance of Liszt's homage to Mozart, the Don Juan Fantasia. At times it was difficult to believe there was not actually a full orchestra on the platform. This was playing of which the composer himself would have been proud. Thunderous applause, a testament to the depth of feeling Mr. Ovchinnikov had touched in his audience."
GLASGOW HERALD

"In Prokofiev Piano Concerto ? 1 -Vladimir Ovchinnikov was as dazzling as possible. He has fingers of fine steel which punch the keyboard like a riveting machine. This is the kind of virtuosity which the work requires, and of which it has long been dreaming. Even in Andante section of the single movement work Ovchinnikov's steel-ness was appropriative and memorably expressive."
THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Vladimir Ovchinnikov - the brilliant young Soviet pianist. Ovchinnikov realized Prokofiev' Second and Seventh Sonatas to perfection, playing with a heady mixture of graphic clarity, whimsically and almost insolent velocity. In the Rachmaninov's Second Sonata again he was superbly alive to the fin-gerbreaking demands of the music; His articulation was miraculously precise, his tone whis-pered and roared but never became strident.
Every chord was weighted with lapidar-ian care. Best of all, this exiting young artist has the gift of simplicity - he gave us heart and brains in perfect equilibrium, shaping his phrases with singing freedom but also with wonderfully firm architecture."
THE NEW YORK POST

"Two encores... and the audience could have stayed all night with the prodigious talent of the Russian Vladimir Ovchinnikov. Outstanding technique and control! This was undoubtedly the most virtuostic performance. And this Russian was loved!!!"
WESTERN MORNING NEWS

"There was real magic in the performance. Ovchinnikov is a pianist of true international class who delighted the audience with his interpretative insight as well as sheer technical wizardry."
CUMBERLAND NEWS

"Mr. Ovchinnikov gave a performance of Rachmaninov's Second Concerto that was outstanding by any standards. He displayed all the technical assurance expected of a prize-winner, and much, much more. His playing had the stamp of maturity and an elegance rare in young lions of the keyboard, and a genuine, deepseated sense of the poetic. Ovchinnikov also sustained rhythmic drive in the finale, giving a feeling of spontaneity to a performance of real class."
GUARDIAN

"Ovchinnikov - a slim, dark-haired virtuoso with fingers of fine-edged steel, he met all Liszt's digital challenges head-on and managed to keep all those pages of densely packed notes organized into a larger structure at the same time. No doubt about it, in any case, he is a REAL LISZTIAN!!!"
TORONTO STAR

"Milano - Vladimir Ovchinnikov, che ha suonato al Conservatorio per la Societa dei concerti, e'uno straordinario pianista; un talento naturale, prodotto dalla eccel-lente scuola russa e avviato subito verse le piu'alte vette del virtuosismo.
Pianista potente, generoso, implacabile e concentratissimo, Ovchinnikov non e'soltano un grande manualista ? un corridore della tastiera. Egli possiede infatti, come hanno mostrato alcuni momenti del suo concerto, anche il dono della dolcezza, della delicatez-za, della preziosa rifmitura del suono."
CORRIERA DELLA SERA

"In the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto the soloist was Vladimir Ovchinnikov, who strode through the octaves and rippled through the fast figuration with the sleekness of a pianistic thoroughbred - such mettled playing, chiselled in technique and polished in tone, is altogether EXCEPTIONAL."
FINANCIAL TIMES

"The commanding musician who then starts to play with an ease and confidence to have you gasping... he played everything as if it was the most natural thing in the world."
THE GUARDIAN

"In the Tchaikovsky Second Piano Concerto the soloist was Vladimir Ovchinnikov. PIANISTEXTRAORDINARE! He's so cool, smart, elegant, pale aristocratic - he looks almost a gentleman. Then you see the hands. They are immense.
He is a combination of two schools of piano playing. He's got the strength, passion, and sheer audacity of an older generation. But he's also got the stunning technical accuracy of the modern school. What strength. What accuracy. The powerful pages were overwhelming, the poetic etched with a glint of steel. And clarity? Jings. It was all there."
GLASGOW HERALD

"In September 1987 he entered for the Leeds International Piano Competition, won it outright, and became the name on the lips of impresarios of five continents.
The unusually long, white fingers look ridiculously like a plaster cast of Chopin's hand come to life; and their dexterity not only effortlessly unties the tighter knots of Liszt and Rachmaninov, but coaxes from their music a depth and range of tone, a fluency of singing line, and a quality of inner listening which marks Ovchinnikov out from the grey ranks of competition:fodder virtuosity."
THE TIMES

"There was the formidable intelligence of Vladimir Ovchinnikov..."
THE GUARDIAN

"Ovchinnikov played Tchaikovsky's First piano Concerto not just with verve, but with unerring sense of seeking out the music's natural nuances and lending the whole concerto a vivid three-dimensional perspective."
DAILY TELEGRAPH

"There were BRILLIANT touches and many interesting, experimental ideas in his Liszt and this was Rachmaninov exposition of a high order."
FINANCIAL TIMES

"When Vladimir Ovchinnikov played Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, - it was fascinating to detect the ghost of the composer in the performer."
YORKSHIRE POST

"Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto -Vladimir Ovchinnikov chose not to over-exaggerate the concerto's spiky qualities, however, giving a performance which, though brilliant, also paid due attention to tone quality. He is a strong, imaginative and intelligent pianist."
THE TIMES

"Russian concert pianist Vladimir Ovchinnikov, one of the younger generation of outstanding keyboard virtuosi."
SOUTH WALES EVENING POST

"Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto. - Technically Ovchinnikov was absolute master of score. It was a performance notable for the soloist's impressive grasp of the concerto's structure. At no point was he inclined to thicken the emotional outpour-ing-again taking his cue from Rachmaninov himself - and I admired his appreciation of the subtler aspects of the score, as in his duets with flute and cello, but his strongest card was his logical unfolding of the music's drama as it progressed from its dark opening to the final triumph."
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

"Ovchinnikov's performance of the Rachmaninov Second Concerto was masterly: broad, brightly coloured, exquisitely shaded. The tone is large, but never vulgarly forced, the technique is perfectly relaxed, and the manner supremely confident."
FINANCIAL TIMES

"And on walked Vladimir Ovchinnikov. A majestic crescendo in the solo opening of the Rachmaninov's 2 announced the ears and hands of a master. This power to free the listener of expectation is preserve of so few in any generation. On reflection, it is easy to contemplate the passages where Ovchinnikov sounded here like Horovitz, there like Ashkenazy, indeed even like the modest Rachmaninov himself."
THE INDEPENDENT

"Rachmaninov, Etudes Tableaux-Ovchinnikov played through all the notorious difficulties as though notes were the last thing on his mind. The first, for my money, was poetry. Hunched over the keys, with the kind of hands you think pianists possess only in books - fingers like icicles - he coaxed everything from the instrument: trumpet fanciers, sepulchral Russian choirs, concentratic ripples of sound, church bells, marching and dark soulfulness the Russian have made their own with a sense of timping and emotional insight that look the breath away."
THE GLASGOW HERALD

"Vladimir Ovchinnikov's victory at the Leeds Competition was well deserved, as he showed here again in his galvanizing performances of Prokofiev's sonatas. Throughout, Mr. Ovchinnikov captured that transcendental virtuosity with which Prokofiev himself, as a pianist, astonished his St. Petersburg audiences in the early years of this century."
DAILY TELEGRAPH

"Ovchinnikov proved himself an expressive pianist in Schumann Piano Concerto. In the fireworks of the finale, he became a dynamo of control with a technique that will take him far."
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

"Mr. Ovchinnikov is a young firebrand who draws a thunderous sound from the piano, apparently with little effort. Yet, his control is such that even in the densest, loudest passages, hisplaying has an uncanny sense of transparency."
NEW YORK TIMES