Van Cliburn (b. Harvey Lavan Cliburn Jr., July 12, 1934 - February 27, 2013), is an American pianist who achieved worldwide recognition in 1958, when at age 23, he won the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War. Cliburn was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and began taking piano lessons at the age of three from his mother, Rildia Bee O'Bryan (who had been taught by Arthur Friedheim, a pupil of Franz Liszt).