Aram Alban · Public domain

Won the 1938 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and became, in 1955, one of the first Soviet musicians permitted to tour the West, making his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the height of Cold War tension. Renowned for his technical control and the burnished tone he brought to Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, he taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1952 and chaired the International Tchaikovsky Competition jury from its founding in 1958.