Vadim Repin
Violin

Vadim Repin was born in Siberia in 1971 and won all categories of the Wienawski competition at the age of eleven. His debuts in Moscow and St. Petersburg followed immediately, and at the age of 14 he made his debut in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin and Helsinki and one year later at Carnegie Hall in New York. At 17 he was the youngest ever winner of the Reine Elisabeth Concours. Since then he has performed with the world’s most important orchestras and conductors and in all the major music centres.  

Vadim Repin recorded the great Russian violin concertos by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky for Warner Classics. For Deutsche Grammophon he recorded the Beethoven Violin Concerto and the Kreutzer Sonata with Martha Argerich with the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti, and the Brahms Violin Concerto and Double Concerto (with Truls Mørk, cello) with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly. DG’s trios of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov with Mischa Maisky and Lang Lang won the Echo Prize, and a CD of sonatas by Grieg, Janacek and César Franck with Nikolai Lugansky won the BBC Music Award. In 2010 he was awarded the highest French distinction, the Victoire d’Honneur and the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres for his services to music. In Beijing he was appointed Honorary Professor of the Central Conservatory of Music in 2014 and in 2015 the Shanghai Conservatory also awarded him this title. 

In April 2014 he became founder and Artistic Director of the first Transsiberian Arts Festival in the magnificent new concert hall of Novosibirsk and performed world premieres of the violin concertos dedicated to him, “Voices of Violin” by Benjamin Yussupov, “De Profundis” by Lera Auerbach and in 2018 the violin concert “Dialogue: You and I” by Sofia Gubaidulina, also commissioned by and dedicated to him. The festival was enthusiastically received, taking place for the sixth time this year in October and November, involving venues in Russia, Japan, Israel, Vienna, the USA and France in addition to Novosibirsk and Siberian destinations, and also setting priorities for young musicians – music education plays an important role in Vadim Repin’s life. Last season he gave a series of master classes for young violinists at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, and was a juror at the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London and the Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels.  

On a European tour with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, he played the world première and numerous first performances of the double concerto “Shadow Walker” by Mark-Anthony Turnage, together with Daniel Hope. Other recent highlights are performances of the programme “Pas de Deux” together with the internationally renowned ballerina Svetlana Zakharova in Hong Kong, Muscat, Japan and Korea, concerts at the Enescu Festival Bucharest, in Verbier and at the Montreal Festival, with the RAI Torino Orchestra, performances of the new violin concerto by Sofia Gubaidulina in Vienna with the RSO under Andres Mustonen and in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Andris Nelsons, and most recently the première of Arvo Pärt’s revised version of “La Sindone” to which the composer, marking his 85th year, added a solo violin part with Vadim Repin in mind. 

Vadim Repin plays the 1733 ‘Rode’ violin by Antonio Stradivari. 

October 2020

Sergei Redkin
Piano

Sergei Redkin was born in 1991 in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. At the age of six he began studying piano at the Music Lyceum of Krasnoyarsk, in the class of Galina Boguslavskaya, also taking courses early on in improvisation and composition with Eduard Markaich.
In year 2004, after becoming a laureat of the International Gavrilin competition for young composers in Saint Petersburg, Sergei continued his education at the Special Music School of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, in the piano class of Olga Kurnavina. At that time Sergei won his first several prizes at competitions for young pianists, such as Rachmaninoff competition (Saint Petersburg, 2005, First prize) and Chopin competition (Estonia, 2006, Grand prix). Sergei also played his first solo recitals in Russia and abroad, getting engagements from Germany, Switzerland, Poland.
He continued his composition studies with Alexander Mnatsakanyan, one of the last pupils of Shostakovich. Among Redkin’s works you can find a string quartet, a trio for winds, a lot of music for piano solo. Suite for cello and piano won the First prize at the young composers’ competition in Saint Petersburg in 2007.
In 2008 Sergei was honored to receive the annual Maestro Temirkanov Award as one of the best students of Saint Petersburg Special Music School.
In 2009 Sergei entered the class of prof. Alexander Sandler at the Saint Petersburg state Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. He also continued his composition studies there with prof. Mnatsakanyan.
During the year 2011 with the support of St Petersburg House of Music Sergei Redkin trained at the famous International Lake Como Piano Academy in Italy, working with such musicians as William Grant Nabore, Dmitry Bashkirov, Peter Frankl, Fou Ts’ong among others. He won the International Maj Lind Piano Competition in Helsinki in 2012, the Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg in 2013, and the bronze medal at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 2015.
Valery Gergiev subsequently engaged Sergei for performances with the Mariinsky Orchestra in Paris Philarmonic Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and Auditorio Nacional in Mexico, inviting him as well to take part in the “MPHIL 360” Festival in Munich Philharmonic Hall. He has performed recitals and chamber music concerts not only in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and various other Russian cities but also in Germany, Austria, France, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Israel and Portugal.
Sergei graduated the Saint-Petersburg conservatory in 2015, and finished his postgraduation studies there in 2017. From 2017 he becomes an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium in the class of Louis Lortie.
In the 2017-18 season, he made his debuts with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonia Orchestra; went on tour with Valery Gergiev and Mariinsky Orchestra, performing in Auditorio Nacional in Madrid and Bela Bartok Hall in Budapest, among others; he additionally performed at the Bruckner House in Linz, the Ruhr Piano Festival, and the Kissingen Sommer Festival, as well as in Basel and Brussels.
In the 2018-19 season, Sergei performed with Yuri Temirkanov and Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Victoria Hall in Geneva and at the Lucerne Summer Festival; in the Zaryadye Hall in Moscow with Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Fedoseyev; went on his first tours in Japan and UK; he also played his first solo recitals at the Lucerne Piano Festival, Verbier Festival in Switzerland and Nohant Festival in France.
In 2018 Sergei Redkin was awarded the Annual Prize of the Ruhr Klavier Festival in Germany. He was nominated by the composer Philip Glass, conductor Dennis Russell Davies and pianist Maki Namekawa.

Mischa Maisky
Cello

Mischa Maisky has the distinction of being the only cellist in the world to have studied with both Mstislav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky.  

Rostropovich lauded Maisky as “… one of the most outstanding talents of the younger generation of cellists. His playing combines poetry and exquisite delicacy with great temperament and brilliant technique.”  

Born in Latvia, educated in Russia and later repatriated to Israel; Maisky has been enthusiastically received in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York, Tokyo and many other major music centres. 

He considers himself a citizen of the world: “I’m playing an Italian cello, with French and German bows and Austrian and German strings, my 6 children were born in 4 different countries, my wife is half Sri Lankan-half Italian, I’m driving a Japanese and an American electric car, I wear an Indian necklace and a Swiss watch, and I feel at home everywhere where people appreciate and enjoy classical music.”

Truly a world-class musician and a regular guest at most major International Festivals, he has collaborated with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Carlo Maria Giulini, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Yuri Temirkanov, Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev, Kirill Petrenko, Paavo Järvi and Gustavo Dudamel. 

His musician partnerships have included artists such as Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu, Nelson Freire, Evgeny Kissin, Itzhak Perlman, Lang Lang, Peter Serkin, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Joshua Bell, Julian Rachlin and Janine Jansen to name just a few.

One of the highlights of his career was the year 2000. It was mainly devoted to a world-wide Bach tour of over 100 concerts! An expression of his deep admiration for this great composer is that Maisky has recorded Bach’s Solo Suites three times, with his Cello Suite No. 1 being viewed more than 45 million times on YouTube.

As an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist for more than 30 years he made over 35 recordings with such orchestras as the Vienna, Berlin and Israel Philharmonics, the London Symphony, L‘Orchestre de Paris, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe and others.

In 2018, the very personal album ‘Adagietto’ was released with his pianist daughter Lily, and featuring bonus live recordings with Martha Argerich, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin and his violinist son Sascha. Included is a multi-track arrangement of Mahler’s Adagietto from his 5th Symphony with Maisky playing all parts (except the harp), a project the cellist had dreamed of for many years. 

His latest recording is entitled ‘20th Century Classics’ and includes a Bonus CD of the world premiere of Benjamin Yusupov’s cello concerto (dedicated to Maisky) as well as a multi-track recording of ‘Bachianas Brasileiras’ by Heitor Villa Lobos.

In June 2021 there will be a set of complete recordings on DG with over 40 CDs released.

Maisky’s recordings have enjoyed world-wide critical acclaim and have been awarded the prestigious Record Academy Prize in Tokyo five times and the Echo Deutscher Schallplattenpreis three times, as well as the Grand Prix du Disque in Paris and the Diapason d’Or of the Year, as well as receiving several coveted Grammy nominations.  

His long and illustrious career has brought Maisky many honors and awards, just some of which include:

In 2018, as Maisky was awarded the 46th Istanbul Music Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, he was lauded as ‘one of the greatest living cellists of our time’ for his ‘profound artistry and devotion to music’.

In 2019, he was awarded Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music. This honor is limited to 300 living persons at a time, recognising Maisky alongside such greats as Mendelssohn, Liszt, Stravinsky and Casals.

In 2021, Maisky was appointed Honorary Academician of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia; founded in 1585, one of the oldest and most prestigious musical institutions in the world. The title of ‘Accademico Onorario’ is awarded to “the most outstanding foreign musicians and musicologists” and Maisky is only the second cellist ever to receive it.