Emil Gilels (born Samuil Grigoryevich Gilels) was born in 1916 in Odessa and began piano at age five and a half with Yakov Tkach, later studying at the Odessa Conservatory under Bertha Reingbald (graduating 1935) and as a postgraduate under Heinrich Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory (completing 1938). He gave his first public concert at twelve, became a Moscow Conservatory professor in 1952, and was among the first Soviet artists permitted to tour the West, making his American debut in October 1955. He died in 1985.

Gilels won the All-Soviet Piano Competition (1933), second prize at the Vienna International Piano Competition (1936), and first prize at the Concours Eugène Ysaÿe/Queen Elisabeth Competition (1938), and later chaired the jury of the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958. Renowned for his technical mastery and burnished tone across a vast repertoire, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, honored with the Lenin Prize and the title Hero of Socialist Labour.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Gilels