He studied composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara from 1975 and in 1987 won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, which led to his New York City recital debut at Carnegie Hall.
His debut solo piano recording for Decca, of the cycles of preludes by Dmitri Shostakovich and Charles-Valentin Alkan, won both the Gramophone and Edison Awards.
In addition to Decca, he has also made recordings for RCA and Ondine, notably of works by Beethoven and various modern Russian composers.
5 ("Four Russian Songs", 1998), which was dedicated to him, with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, on 11 October 1999.
[3] As a composer, his work shows a "predilection for contrapunctally interwoven compositions and works of the 20th century which take up ideas from the 17th and 18th centuries, for example the Bach arrangements by Ferruccio Busoni and the cycles of preludes and fugues by Shostakovich, or Ludus Tonalis by Paul Hindemith.