Igor Levit's new record label: "My life is No Silence"

New label from Igor Levit "My life is No Silence" As of: October 22, 2026 • 5:23 p.m

Igor Levit is internationally successful as a pianist - and repeatedly gets involved in politics. With his own label he now wants to give other artists a platform. The name has a personal history.

Igor Levit has just learned to play the piano. Now he is sitting at the front of the hall of Berlin's Columbia Theater for an interview. Behind him are the audience seats and the stage on which he will play in the evening. What does this evening mean to him? Levit thinks for a moment. But his answer is very clear. "Tonight I celebrate, let's celebrate together the birth of No Silence."

His own record label. Or, as he calls it: "my first non-human baby."

Chairs are still being set up in the background. Levit continues speaking, even if there is another clatter behind him. And as he explains it, it becomes clear how personal this project is for him. Something that has a lot of passion in it. "My life is No Silence. I believe in it, I believe in this energy. The fact that I can celebrate the birth of the label with everyone here this evening means so much to me," he says. "So much, I don't even know how to put it into words."

Even with the next questions there is always a bang in the background during the construction. Then Levit turns to the people behind him: “Just a five-minute break, is that possible?” He asks hesitantly. Finally, this is where he sets up for his evening.

During a speech at the Dresden State Theater, star pianist Igor Levit called for a different approach to Jewish memories. In times of crisis they could revitalize Germany. mdr

In the evening, Levit wants to play music and explain how his new label works. His own recordings will appear there, but also those of other artists. He and his team decide which artists they are and what they record. Her own label makes her more independent. Levit made the decision to have his own years ago. Because it is unclear to him how the music industry will develop and what changes there will be at the major record labels.

The first three albums will be released this Friday, October 23rd. Including the first album by pianist Lukas Sternath with music by Schubert and Liszt. Levit himself plays Beethoven's third symphony, the "Eroica", on another album. Actually a work for orchestra, here in an arrangement for piano by Franz Liszt. There is also a recording of Erik Satie's "Vexations": the same short sequence of notes played 840 times in a row. Around 16 hours long.

Levit's career was particularly influenced musically by the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. His debut album from 2013 with the composer's last five piano sonatas brought him great international attention. All 32 sonatas were recorded in 2019. There are also numerous awards, including the Gilmore Artist Award 2018 and being named Artist of the Year by the British classical music magazine “Gramophone” in 2020.

Levit was born in Nizhny Novgorod, then the Soviet Union, now Russia. At the age of eight he came to Germany with his family. He studied piano at the University of Music, Theater and Media in Hanover. He has been a professor there since 2019.

The Gewandhaus in Leipzig has presented its program highlights for 2026/27. The focus should be Ludwig van Beethoven. His works will be played by stars of the classical music scene such as Lang Lang and Igor Levit. mdr

Outside the concert halls, he became known to many during the Corona pandemic. In spring 2020 he broadcast more than 50 house concerts on Twitter, now X. Music mostly from his apartment when public concerts were not possible. People from all over the world listened. He played one of the concerts at Bellevue Palace at the invitation of the Federal President.

"I don't just want to be the man who presses the buttons": This sentence from an interview with Die Zeit can be found on Levit's homepage, right above his biography.

Levit intervenes. Against racism and anti-Semitism, for climate protection. He also sat down at the piano in unusual places: in 2019 at “Fridays for Future”, a year later in the Dannenröder Forest, where there was a demonstration against clearing for a motorway. After the controversial Echo award to Kollegah and Farid Bang in 2018, he returned his own award. Her texts were criticized for anti-Semitic statements.

In July of this year, a canceled television appearance caused controversy. Levit was supposed to play the song “Keine Angst” with the rapper Danger Dan in the ZDF satirical show “Die Anstalt”. ZDF canceled because the text could be understood as a call to violence. Levit criticized this as an “interference with freedom of expression and freedom of art.”

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The name of his label is related to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the period afterwards. “That day was the starting signal, completely unconsciously, of a kind of self-discovery and also a clarification about who I wanted to be in this life,” says the pianist. "There's a lot that goes into it. The way I speak, the meaning of my Jewishness, the question of belonging."

Levit describes these weeks as a time when he was at a loss for words. The music was still there, the language wasn't. In November 2023 he initiated the solidarity concert “Against Silence. Against Anti-Semitism” with the Berliner Ensemble and Michel Friedman. Among others, Margot Friedländer, Wolf Biermann and Die Toten Hosen were there. After this concert he decided on the name "No Silence".

Levit still remembers exactly how the evening in the Berliner Ensemble was like “a kind of explosion” for him.

Iranian networks are also believed to be behind attack plans in this country. more

October 7th also changed his view of Berlin, the center of his life. "The city has become darker, the city has become more aggressive and for the Jew in me the city has become shittier," he says. He now often shares Jewish jokes on social networks. "Should I comment on coalition building every day? I don't feel like it," he says. "I feel like sharing what makes me feel so good. And besides music, that's Jewish humor."

Levit can also imagine jazz and hip-hop on his new label. “There are no artistic limits under the No Silence umbrella,” he says. How passionate someone is about an idea is important to them - even if the project seems crazy at first. Making music together with others is what it should be about. "It's clearly not a label that I bring into the world just for myself. No, I want to get through this time together with great colleagues."

This topic in the program: NDR Culture | The Morning | Oct 21, 2026 | 9:40 a.m