Bella Davidovich (born July 16, 1928) is a Jewish-born, Soviet and American pianist. Davidovich was born in Baku, Azerbaijan into a family of musicians and began studying piano when she was six. Three years later, she was solist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1939, she moved to Moscow to continue her musical education. At the age of 18 she entered the Moscow Conservatory where she studied with Konstantin Igumnov and Jakov Flier. In 1949, she shared the first prize of the fourth International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition with Halina Czerny-Stefanska. This launched her on a very successful career in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in which she appeared with every major Russian conductor and performed as a soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic for 28 consecutive seasons. She also taught at the Moscow Conservatory for sixteen years. Bella Davidovich was one of the Soviet Union's pre-eminent artists as well as one of the few women to be admitted to the inner circle of Russian cultural life.
With the spirit of perestroika, she became the first Soviet emigré musician to receive an official invitation from the Soviet agency Goskoncert to perform in her native country. She played concertos, a recital with her son, the violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky and chamber music with the Borodin String Quartet to sold-out halls.
In 1978 she emigrated to the U.S. where she became a naturalized citizen. In October 1979 she had her American debut at Carnegie Hall before a standing-room only audience. She has taught at the famous Juilliard School of Music in New York City since 1982.
At the invitation of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam where she has been a frequent and well-loved guest, she celebrated her 70th birthday in July 1998 by way of two magnificent concert performances together with her son, friends and students. She subsequently performed together with Gidon Kremer, Frans Helmerson, Lars Vogt and many other instrumentalists at Isabelle van Keulen's chamber music festival in Delft where she has been a regular guest. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of her winning First Prize at the first Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw back in 1949, the Piano Festival Ruhr invited her for an orchestral concert and a recital in 1999. In Rotterdam, she took over a recital from Maria Joao Pires at short notice with great success. Future engagements include recitals at the Piano Festival Ruhr, in Stettin, Madrid, Mallorca and Lugano, chamber music at the Rheingau Musik Festival as well as orchestral concerts in Amsterdam, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under Hubert Soudant.
As a highly regarded pedagogue, she now concentrates her teaching activities at the Juilliard School in New York. She is also a regular jury member at many of the world's major international piano competitions. In 1995 she served on the jury of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels, the Chopin Competition in Warsaw and the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey, Switzerland. Bella Davidovich has recorded for Philips, Orfeo and Novalis.