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Renowned Russian pianist Ilya Yakushev returns to the Bankhead Theater on Saturday to open Del Valle Fine Arts’ 49th season.
The program for the 3 p.m. concert will feature showpieces from the classical repertoire, Yakushev said in an interview, and will be split into two parts. He’ll first play two major sonatas, including Beethoven’s “Appassionata”. In the second half, Yakushev will perform several shorter works that run three to four minutes each, including Gershwin’s “Three Preludes” and Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz No. 1”.
“I just wanted to come up with a set that I thought would be pleasing for the audience members in Livermore, and I’m sure that they will enjoy those selections,” said Yakushev, who made his Bankhead Theater debut in 2024. “The music is beautiful, so I hope they approve.”
Yakushev grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, and started playing the piano at around 6 years old.
“My parents decided to take me to a dinner at my mother’s piano teacher’s place,” he said. “I came up to the piano and started doing something silly with it, and she asked if my mother would like to bring me for a lesson the next day.”
Yakushev said he was competitive, and he began racking up awards ag age 12, when he won the Young Artists Concerto Competition in St. Petersburg. In 1997, he received the Mayor of St. Petersburg’s Young Talents award, and he won first prize at the Donostia Hiria International Piano Competition in San Sebastián, Spain, in both 1997 and 1998.
Despite his early success, he said, “There was no master plan to say, ‘Hey, I want to be a professional musician.’”
Growing up in Russia in the ’90s, “being a musician was not the most popular thing, meaning there was absolutely no money in the profession,” he said. “Was there a real wish to be broke for the rest of my life? Not really.”
Still, he said, he loved the piano and the music he was playing. At the time in St. Petersburg, he said, kids would start their specialized college education at 15 or 16 years old.
When he was 14, he said, his parents sat him down and asked whether studying music was something he wanted to do.
“I said, ‘Why not? Let’s try it out,’” he recalled.
Yakushev studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music in St. Petersburg and then moved to New York City in 2000 to attend Mannes School of Music.
He has played piano in some of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul, South Korea. He also performs with the Amelia Piano Trio.
Although he splits his time between New Jersey and St. Petersburg, Yakushev said he thinks of the Bay Area as his “third home.”
“I love everything about California altogether and that area in particular,” he said.
Downtown Livermore’s Bankhead Theater, he said, “is an absolutely amazing place,” adding that when he performed there in 2024, he was “blown away” by the theater’s Steinway concert grand piano.
“It felt great to play there last time, and I’m really looking forward to returning,” he said. “The piano made it so much more fun because it was such a beautiful, beautiful instrument.”
He said he hopes his performance this weekend allows the audience to “get away from everyday problems” and “dive into the world of beautiful music.”
Tickets for the Saturday (Oct. 17) show are $35-$57, free for those ages 21 and younger. After the performance, audience members can meet Yakushev over refreshments in the theater lobby.
The Del Valle Fine Arts’ 2026-27 season continues with performances by four chamber ensembles. The Davin-Levin Duo is set to play Nov. 14, followed by the Akropolis Reed Quintet on Feb. 6 and Duo Beaux Arts on March 20. The Jupiter String Quartet will close out the season on April 24. For tickets and more information, visit livermorearts.org.
