In the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, Kondrashin was the conductor for American pianist Van Cliburn, who won the first prize. Following the competition, he toured the United States with Cliburn, being the first Soviet conductor to visit America since the beginning of the Cold War. They performed and recorded the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.3 and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1, which they had played in the competition. Millions of the recordings were sold in America. And their Tchaikovsky recording for RCA Victor was the first classical LP to sell one million copies. Later, in 1972, a concert performance of Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 reunited Cliburn and Kondrashin with the Moscow Philharmonic in Moscow; RCA Victor eventually released the recorded performance in 1994, along with a studio recording of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, on compact disc. Kondrashin was also the artistic director of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 to 1975. During this period he conducted the premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No.4 in December 1961 and No.13 the following year.Premiere He conducted several performances in Europe and America with other famous Russian musicians like Rostropovich, Oistrakh, and Richter.
