Nikita Istratov, 18, has been playing piano since the age of 6 under the tutelage of Elena Istratova. He completed high school in Portland, OR with a full IB Diploma and is now in his first year of college, studying piano on scholarship under Dr. Alexandre Dossin. In his time in high school, he completed Level X of the OMTA Syllabus program “With Distinction,” performed at Weill Recital Hall in New York twice, and won first prize at the 2021 Pittsburgh International Piano Competition. Recently, he won first prize at the 2021 and 2025 Oregon State OPUS competitions and received a discretionary award at each of those years’ national competition rounds. Nikita has won first place at the OMTA Donna and David Eason, Francis Virginia Melton, and Gladys Strong scholarships, and won third prize in the 2022 Pacific International Piano Competition.

He was selected for and attended the 2023 New York University Steinhardt School MPAP Summer Piano Intensive, where he studied with NYU piano faculty including Jeffrey Swann, Manuel Laufer, and Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner. He has taken masterclasses with artists like Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Alexander Tutunov, and Julio Elizalde. Nikita also performed at The Reser in Portland, OR in May 2024 as a winner of the MetroArts Young Artists Debut! competition.

Most recently, he won the 1st place Colliver Award for best piano performance at the Monday Music Club of Portland Music Awards, with a score of 50/50. Nikita loves attending concerts and studying classical music, from theory to analysis. He recently received the University of Oregon’s competitive First-Year Research Award to study, analyze, and present the music of Sofia Gubaidulina. He is a member of the student staff of the Oregon Piano Institute, responsible for program research and student outreach. He represents the undergraduate instrumental performance student body on the Dean’s Student Advisory Council of the School of Music and Dance. Nikita studies collaborative piano performance with Dr. David Riley, historical keyboard performance practice with Dr. Joyce Chen (under who he presented on fortepiano performance at the 2025 UO Undergraduate Research Symposium), and instrumental conducting with Rodrigo Gonzalez Jacob.