ELENA BASHKIROVA, who grew up in a musical environment as the daughter of pianist Dmitri Bashkirov and violinist Vera Bashkirova, began a promising career with a series of concerts with Gidon Kremer in the 1970s. Her chamber performances gave her the occasion to later admit that chamber music is the music’s soul. Thus she founded the Megalopolis Ensemble in Berlin, and founded and directs the International Chamber Music Festival in Jerusalem, a pillar of Israel’s cultural life, held annually in September and featuring elite world musicians. Elena Bashkirova regularly performs with musicians from these festivals at the world’s most important chamber music series, including summer festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest and the Beethovenfest in Bonn. Numerous recordings document the highlights of the programmes made by Bashkirova for various chamber ensembles.
The repertoire for piano and voice is of particular importance to Bashkirova. She has appeared in duets with singers such as Anna Netrebko, Olga Peretyatko, Dorothea Röschmann, René Pape and Robert Hall.
Her professional path has actively been changing, since 1978 she has lived in Paris, working with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Sergiu Celibidache and Michael Guillin. She has appeared on stages in Europe and the United States, and has given concerts in Berlin, Paris, Lisbon, London, Vienna, New York, Budapest, and Dusseldorf.
Since 1992 she has lived in Berlin with her husband Daniel Barenboim.
Among the highlights of the 2023/24 season are her performances as soloist with the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra in Cluj under the direction of Lawrence Foster, the Opéra de Marseille Orchestra, the Cantus Firmus Orchestra in Plovdiv under the direction of Georgi Dimitrov, as well as the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. Further appearances include Jerusalem Festival Ensemble, the Musikverein Vienna, the Frauenkirche Dresden and Cologne Philharmonic, as well as a tour in South America.
In December 2023 Elena, who is also the president of the Mendelssohn House Leipzig, will present a multiday Mendelssohn Festival at the Boulez Saal Berlin. She collaborates with American baritone Thomas Hampson. She is going to give solo recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Ludwigsburg, among others.
Bashkirova’s recording of two cycles from Tchaikovsky, The Seasons and The Children’s Album, received the 2017 ICMA Award in the “solo instrument” performer category. She has made a complete recording of Antonín Dvořák ‘s Poetic Tone Pictures. Recorded an album of Mozart’s works entitled Mozart: Sonatas & Fantasies (2022). In 2018 Elena Bashkirova received the prize of the Russian Piano Festival. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
She has been appointed to succeed conductor Kurt Masur as president of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdi Foundation in Leipzig.