Ryszard Bakst was a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 pianist and piano teacher of Jewish/Polish

Poles

thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

/Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 origin.

Bakst was a descendant of the Russian artist Leon Bakst

Léon Bakst

Léon Samoilovitch Bakst was a Russian painter and scene- and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes...

. His teachers were initially his mother and pianist Józef Turczyński

Józef Turczynski

Jozéf Turczyński was a Polish pianist, pedagogue and musicologist who exercised a powerful influence over the development of piano teaching and performance, especially in the works of Frédéric Chopin, during the first half of the 20th century...

, then Abram Lufer

Abram Lufer

Abram Lufer was an Ukrainian pianist.The Head of the Lysenko Musical Institute's piano department since 1929, Lufer won the Kharkiv'30 All-Ukrainian Piano Competition and was appointed the National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine's soloist...

 (who had won the 1927 Chopin International Piano Competition) and later Konstantin Igumnov

Konstantin Igumnov

Konstantin Nicolayevich Igumnov was a Russian virtuoso pianist and the teacher of many famous Russian pianists.Igumnov studied under Nikolai Zverev, and at Moscow Conservatory under Alexander Siloti and Pavel Pabst. He took theory and composition courses from Sergei Taneyev, Anton Arensky and...

 and Heinrich Neuhaus

Heinrich Neuhaus

Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus was a Soviet pianist and pedagogue of German extraction. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1922 to 1964. He was made a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1956...

 at the Moscow Conservatory

Moscow Conservatory

The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...

, and finally with pianist Zbigniew Drzewiecki

Zbigniew Drzewiecki

Zbigniew Drzewiecki was a Polish pianist especially associated with the interpretation of Chopin's works, who was for most of his life a teacher of pianists. His pupils include several famous pianists of the 20th century, and his influence was therefore very pervasive.Drzewiecki was born in Warsaw...

.

Bakst was a prize winner at the 4th Chopin International Piano Competition (1949) and performed in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the USA.

He immigrated to Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 in 1968.

Among his students are Jose de la Vega, Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis (pianist)

Paul Lewis is an English classical pianist. His father worked at the Liverpool docks and his mother was a local council worker; there were no musicians in his family background....

, Janusz Olejniczak

Janusz Olejniczak

Janusz Olejniczak is a Polish classical pianist and actor.Olejniczak's piano teachers were Ryszard Bakst and Zbigniew Drzewiecki. In 1970 he won 6th place in the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, and two years later he placed in the Alfredo Casella Piano Competition in...

, Ronan O'Hora, Raymond Clarke, Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson is a journalist and author based in western Massachusetts. He has written for Harper's, The Boston Globe, Wired, Science, and the Rolling Stone and is a regular contributor to New Scientist and Wired News.Anderson is a proponent of the Oxfordian theory that the Elizabethan court...

, Matthew Schellhorn

Matthew Schellhorn

Matthew Schellhorn is a British pianist.Selected as a 'Talent to Watch' for 2007 by BBC Music Magazine, and described as 'a rising star' and 'one of Britain's most exciting young pianists' , Matthew Schellhorn has a growing international career, which in recent seasons has seen recitals in...

, Murray McLachlan, Graham Scott, Peter Seivewright

Peter Seivewright

Peter Seivewright is a British pianist. After music studies at Oxford, he was a post-graduate student at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he studied piano with Ryszard Bakst.-Work with Galuppi's sonatas:...

, and Tim Horton.