Misha Dichter was born in 1945 in Shanghai, where his Polish parents had fled to by way of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in order to wait out the war. In 1947 the Dichter family moved to Los Angeles where Misha began studying piano. His first significant teacher was Aube Tzerko, who had studied with Artur Schnabel. “He literally started me from scratch,” Dichter recalled. But the hard work finally paid off when he was accepted into Rosina Lhévinne's class at the Juilliard School.

It was inevitable, perhaps, that Dichter’s début release for the label would be given over to the Tchaikovsky B flat minor Concerto, the same work that catapulted the competition’s first winner Van Cliburn to international stardom. Dichter was to perform the Tchaikovsky at Tanglewood, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf, so RCA duly set up recording sessions.