The pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov was born in Magadan (Siberia) in 1963 and grew up in Saint Petersburg where he graduated from a specialized music school and was awarded a gold medal for his accomplishments. He continued his musical education at the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory, where he earned a concert diploma with distinction. He has lived in Germany since 1992.

As a pianist, Jascha Nemtsov performs internationally. He has recorded more than 40 CDs to date, including numerous first recordings of works by rediscovered persecuted composers. “Jascha Nemtsov presents himself as a worthy descendant of Liszt and his pupils”, wrote the German magazine “Fono Forum” on the occasion of Nemtsov’s CD of Hungarian Rhapsodies by Franz Liszt. Many of his CDs have been honoured with various international distinctions. His CD of sonatas for violin and piano by Shostakovich and Weinberg, with violinist Kolja Blacher, received the German Record Critics’ Award in 2007. Nemtsov was awarded the OPUS KLASSIK – the German Classical Music Prize – in 2018 for his five-CD anthology of piano works by the Russian composer Vsevolod Zaderatsky, who was persecuted under Stalinism. His most recent CD “Ukrainian Préludes” was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards 2025. In 2012 and in 2022 he performed in the German Bundestag. Additionally, Nemtsov is an exceptionally gifted storyteller who often accentuates his concerts with lively commentary.

In 2004, Jascha Nemtsov earned his doctorate, and in 2007 his habilitation. In 2011 he was Visiting Professor for Jewish Music and Culture at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, in 2018 he was DAAD Visiting Professor at the University of Haifa in Israel, and since 2013 he has a full tenure position as Professor for History of Jewish Music at the Liszt University of Music in Weimar. Nemtsov is editor of the series “Jewish Music. Studies and Sources on Jewish Musical Culture” published by Harrassowitz Wiesbaden. His academic work focuses on Jewish music and Jewish composers in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, as well as topics such as “Nationalism and Music”, “Religion and Music” or “Totalitarianism and Music”. He gives guest lectures at universities and music academies throughout Europe, as well as in Israel, Canada and the USA. In 2024, Harrassowitz Wiesbaden published his monograph From St. Petersburg to Vienna: The New Jewish School in Music (1908-1938) as Part of the Jewish Cultural Renaissance and Nomos published his textbook Jewish Music: Introduction, the first publication of its kind in the world. Nemtsov is a member of the Institute for Musicology Weimar-Jena and the Institute for Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam, Academic Director of the Cantor Training Program at the Abraham Geiger College, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg and other academic bodies.

Jascha Nemtsov is married to the composer Sarah Nemtsov. They live in Berlin with their three children.