Yuri Bashmet

A well-known, favourite and eagerly awaited artist on concert stages all over the world, YURI BASHMET has repeatedly made happy audiences in Bulgaria with his exceptional presence. Phenomenal virtuoso, rightly termed „Paganini of the viola”, he is in the highest degree a great musician, whose exuberant spirituality finds versatile outlets in the various aspects of his performing artistry as soloist and chamber partner within an immense repertoire range, as conductor, instructor, founder of ensembles, orchestras, festivals, competitions, bright outstanding cultural events and public initiatives. Born in 1953 in Rostov-on-Don, Yuri Bashmet graduated from the Moscow conservatory in the class of Professor Fyodor Druzhinin (member of the Borodin Quartet). In 1972, Bashmet procured a 1758 viola made by Milanese luthier Paolo Testore, which he uses for his performances to date. Even as a student he won his first awards at the competitions in Budapest and in Munich, gained international prominence after the tour around Germany with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra founded by Rudolf Barshai and since then has played in the leading concert venues throughout Europe, USA, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan. For the first time in the history of viola performance he gave viola recitals in such venues as Carnegie Hall (New York), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Barbican (London), the Berlin Philharmonic, La Scala (Milan), Suntory Hall (Tokyo) Tivoli (Copenhagen), Musikverein (Vienna), Academy of Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. As a soloist and conductor he has performed with the best orchestras - the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Symphony Orchestras of the Bavarian and French Radio, London, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Paris, the Vienna Philharmonic, among others. Yuri Bashmet has performed under many noted conductors, including Rafael Kubelík, Mstislav Rostropovich, Seiji Ozawa, Valery Gergiev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Sir Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, Yehudi Menuhin, Charles Dutoit, Sir Neville Marriner, Paul Sacher, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Masur, Bernard Haitink, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He has played at concerts in partnership with Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Gidon Kremer, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Isaac Stern, Gidon Kremer, Martha Argerich, Misha Mayski, Shlomo Mintz, Vadim Repin, Jesse Norman, Victor Tretyakov and a number of other renowned musicians. His concert programs include music from all epochs, and over fifty-five works for viola were written especially for him by Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaydulina, Edison Denisov, John Tavener, Mikhail Pletnev, Andrey Golovin, Alexander Raskatov, Giya Kancheli, Andrei Tchaikovsky, Vitautas Barkauskas, Andrei Eshpay, and Paul Ruders among others. Participated at festivals in USA (Tanglewood), France (Bordeaux, Biarritz, Menton), Belgium (Brussels), Germany (Kroyt), Italy (Siena, Sorrento, Camerino, Streza), Finland(Kainuu, Mikkeli), as well as on the March Music Days Festival in Ruse, Bulgaria. He is a regular participant of the Promenade Concerts in Royal Albert Hall (London). He is an artistic director of seven festivals around the world, among them Rolandseck (Germany), Tours (France) and Elba Island (Italy), December Evenings in Moscow, as well as the international festivals in Minsk and Yaroslavl. In 1985 Yuri Bashmet began his conducting activity and founded the Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra. Later he reconstituted the orchestra, assembling some of the most talented young musicians of Russia who are graduates and postgraduate students of the Moscow Conservatory. In 2002 became Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the New Russia State Symphony Orchestra (Moscow), and since 2012 leads the All-Russian Youth Symphony Orchestra, which features seventy-nine young musicians from twenty-eight cities of Russia. Bashmet founded in 1994 the first and only one in Russia International Viola Competition in Moscow. He is the President of the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition in Great Britain, the member of Jury for the violists’ contests in Munich and Maurice Vie in Paris. Since 1978, Yuri Bashmet teaches at the Moscow Conservatory, where he is currently a professor and created an experimental viola department for extended studies. He acts as artistic director of the Youth Music Academy of the CIS countries, established in 2009. Bashmet has conducted master classes in Japan, Europe, USA, and Hong Kong. He teaches summer courses at the Accademia Chigiana (Siena, Italy) and at the Academy of Tours (France). He participated in a number of large- scale charity actions of international significance – in Carnegie Hall (with Elton John and Stevie Wonder), in London (in memory of Princess Diana); in concerts raising aid for the victims of natural disasters in Armenia and Japan, and to funds allotted to aid handicapped children. In 1994 Bashmet founded an international charity fund, which bestows the annual awards named on Shostakovich for outstanding achievements in the field of international art. Winners of this award include Gidon Kremer, Viktor Tretyakov, Valery Gergiev, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Olga Borodin, Maxim Vengerov Natalia Gutman, and Evgeny Kissin. The artistry of Yuri Bashmet has been distinguished with numerous awards and regalia in Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Lithuania, Denmark and Italy. He is Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2000, France) and Officer of the Légion d’honneur (2003, France), Honorary Academician of the London Academy of Arts, Honorary Professor of the Accademia Chigiana, Honorary Citizen of Ruse. Cinema and television companies from United Kingdom, France and Russia have made several films about him, his compact-discs have won prestigious European awards, such as Diapason d’or and Choc, а one of his recordings made in collaboration with the Moscow soloists was distinguished with the Grammy Award.