Anton Sorokow

The distinguished violinist and teacher ANTON SOROKOW was born in 1978 in Moscow into a family of musicians (his father Leonid Sorokow was concertmaster of the Moscow Soloists for many years and later played in the renowned Vienna Mozart Trio). He received his first violin lessons from his mother at the age of four, began his studies at the Central Music School in Moscow with Professor Yevgenia Chugaeva at the age of ten, and made his debut as a child in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. Since 1991, he has been a student of Professor Dora Schwarzberg at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, graduating with honors in 2004. In July 1996, he was granted a fellowship to attend Isaac Stern's seminar in Verbier, Switzerland. That same year, he became an Austrian citizen. He has won the second prize at the Yfrah Neaman Competition in Mainz, Germany (1993); third prize at the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition, Poland; first prize and a special prize at the Beethoven Competition in the Czech Republic (1994); first prize at the Stefanie Hohl Competition in Vienna (1997); first prize at the Romano Romanini Competition in Brescia, Italy (1999). His active concert career includes prestigious solo performances in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Japan. He has collaborated with renowned musicians and conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Georges Prêtre, Philippe Jordan, Myung Whun Chung, Kent Nagano, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Mstislav Rostropovich, Franz Welser-Möst, and Fabio Luisi. A highlight was his joint performance with Montserrat Caballé in 2001 before 5,000 listeners in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor Arcade, playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto; he also participated in other concerts with her that spring. In December 2000, he made his debut in the Great Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lior Shambadal. As early as 1993, he released a CD with the Montpellier Symphony Orchestra. In the summer of 2007, he recorded violin concertos by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Kabalevsky with Vienna musicians, and in 2023, he recorded Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” for the Austrian National Bank. Since 2003, Anton Sorokow has been the First Concertmaster of the Nuremberg Philharmonic, and since 2005, a soloist and First Concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. From 2008 to 2011, he taught at the Vienna Conservatory – Private University, and since 2011, he has been a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Since 2024, he has served as director of the Fritz Kreisler Institute at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Since 2013, he has been a visiting professor at Bicocca University in Milan and co-founder of the Eisenstadt Easter Seminar. He also performs regularly in chamber music and holds master classes at the NYCMF Music Festival in Norway. He has served on juries for several international competitions and has been invited to numerous master classes both in Austria and abroad, including as a guest in Bulgaria. His students have secured positions in renowned European orchestras and have won major prizes at international music competitions. Anton Sorokow plays a violin by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, Cremona 1741, nicknamed “Ex Carrodus,” from the collection of the Austrian National Bank.