Czech Chamber Music Society • Julia Fischer & Yulianna Avdeeva

German violinist Julia Fischer is recognized worldwide for possessing a talent of uncommon ability and as an exceptionally gifted artist, reflected in the numerous awards and effusive reviews she has received for both her live performances and recordings, including being named “Artist of the Year” at The Gramophone Awards in 2007 and “Instrumentalist of the Yearˮ at the 2009 MIDEM Classical Awards.

Born in Munich, Julia Fischer began learning the violin at age three and soon thereafter started taking piano lessons. She became a pupil of Ana Chumachenco at the Munich Academy of Music and as just an 11-years-old won the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, an event that catapulted her towards an international career as a soloist.

Julia Fischer has since appeared regularly with the world’s most celebrated orchestras and conductors. In recent seasons, concert highlights have included orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. Julia Fischer has worked with conductors of the highest level including Blomstedt, Eschenbach, Jurowski, Järvi, Maazel, Temirkanov, and Zinman. An avid recitalist and chamber musician, Julia Fischer has performed in the world’s great concert halls and in festivals across Europe, including the Musikverein Vienna, Berlin Philharmonie and Carnegie Hall in New York, and at the BBC Proms, Salzburg Easter Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, and Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Julia Fischer opened the 2014/15 season with concerts at the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, performing in recital with Igor Levit and in concert with the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin under the baton of Michael Sanderling. Following an appearance with Daniel Müller-Schott at the Festival Herbstliche Musiktage, Julia Fischer embarks on a recital tour of France with Yulianna Avdeeva. A tour of Germany with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia and Vladimir Jurowski will see Julia Fischer perform the rarely programmed Schumann Violin concerto; she also tours Switzerland in the role of conductor and soloist with pianist Oliver Schnyder and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and appears in major venues throughout Europe alongside the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Temirkanov. Further highlights as soloist include the Philharmonia Orchestra under Hrůša, MDR Symphony under Kristjan Järvi, Boston Symphony under Dutoit, and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich/Bringuier. Summer 2015 will see Julia Fischer performing at major festivals – at Grafenegg Music Festival, at the Kissinger Summer Music Festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Blomstedt, at the Rheingau Music Festival with Jordan – as well as on a European tour with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony under Sanderling performing Khachaturian.

The 2014/15 season will also include a tour of Europe with the Julia Fischer Quartet, which was founded by Julia Fischer in the 2011/12 season and garnered ecstatic acclaim from public and critics alike for Julia Fischer, violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, violist Nils Mönkemeyer and cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger.

Julia Fischer records exclusively for Decca Classics / Universal Music Group. The latest recordings feature the Bruch and Dvořák violin concertos with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under Zinman and works of Sarasate for violin and piano with frequent collaborator Milana Chernyavska.

On 1 January 2008 she made her professional piano debut at the Alte Oper Frankfurt performing Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and conductor Matthias Pintscher. On the same program, she performed Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3. A DVD of this concert, recorded by Unitel Classica, was released by Decca.

“An astonishing performance, and throughout the evening Avdeeva conjured a beautiful sound from the piano.” (Classical Source, February 2013) 

Following her sensational win of the First Prize at the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition 2010 in Warsaw, Yulianna Avdeeva is fast establishing herself as an artist whose performances combine intense musicality and emotional depth with a formidable technique and intellectual rigour. Engagements this season include returns to the Czech Philharmonic and Finnish Radio Symphony orchestras, under Manfred Honeck and Vasily Petrenko respectively, as well as debuts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Vladimir Jurowski) and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (again with Honeck), alongside performances with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Pacific Symphony. She also tours to Spain with the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio and Vladimir Fedoseyev. Upcoming recitals include appearances in Munich, Mainz, Trieste, Milan, Seoul and at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Further ahead, she will return to Japan for a recital tour and her debut with Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra.

Highlights of Avdeeva’s 2012/2013 season included highly successful debuts with the Orchestra dellʼAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Marek Janowski), as well as an acclaimed tour of the USA with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Antoni Wit. Recent recitals have included returns to London’s International Piano Series and the Rheingau Musik Festival, as well as appearances at Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao, Klangräume Festival in Waidhofen, Liederhalle in Stuttgart, Essen’s Philharmonie, Salle Molière in Lyon and Schwetzinger Festspiele.

Avdeeva’s repertoire spans a wide range, from Bach to music of the 20th century. She is known for performing on period instruments: in August 2011 and 2012 she played Chopin’s Piano Concertos on an Erard piano at the Festival ‘Chopin and his Europe’, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Jacek Kaspszyk) and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century (Frans Brüggen). She performed again with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Brüggen when they toured together to Japan in spring 2013. They have recently released a recording of these concertos on the Fryderyk Chopin Institute label, to great critical acclaim.

In addition to her solo recital and concerto performances, Avdeeva is an enthusiastic chamber musician, working with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker (the Philharmonia Quartet) and violinist Julia Fischer, amongst others. She has appeared with Fischer twice at the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, giving a duo recital and also performing Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and Strings, and they will tour together in Europe in October 2014. Other chamber music partners include members of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, with whom she collaborated at the Muziekgebouw Frits Philips Eindhoven in December 2012.

Beginning her piano studies at the age of five with Elena Ivanova at the Gnessin Special School of Music, Avdeeva attended the Zurich University of the Arts (studying with Konstantin Scherbakov) and the renowned International Piano Academy Lake Como (under Artistic Director William Grant Naboré) where she continues to work with Dmitri Bashkirov and Fou Ts’ong. Avdeeva has won several other international competitions including the Bremen Piano Contest in 2003, the Concours de Genève 2006 and the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Poland.