Patricia Kopatchinskaja
“Contemporary music is the air I breathe. Composers are the musicians I feel most at ease with. I like to try out, discuss and play new pieces, preferably while the ink is still wet and no ‘experts’ or rigid traditions impede freedom.”
Patricia Kopatchinskaja – “the most exciting violinist in the world”, as string players’ magazine The Strad described her – was born in 1997 in Chisinau, Moldova, the daughter of musicians who played in the Moldovan state folk ensemble. After the end of communism in her homeland, the family moved to Vienna, where Kopatchinskaja studied violin and composition. At 21 she gained a scholarship to study [...]
“Contemporary music is the air I breathe. Composers are the musicians I feel most at ease with. I like to try out, discuss and play new pieces, preferably while the ink is still wet and no ‘experts’ or rigid traditions impede freedom.”
Patricia Kopatchinskaja – “the most exciting violinist in the world”, as string players’ magazine The Strad described her – was born in 1997 in Chisinau, Moldova, the daughter of musicians who played in the Moldovan state folk ensemble. After the end of communism in her homeland, the family moved to Vienna, where Kopatchinskaja studied violin and composition. At 21 she gained a scholarship to study in Berne and in 2000 she won the International Henryk Szeryng Competition in Mexico. She has received awards for her complete recording of Beethoven's works for violin and orchestra, and the concertos of Bartók, Eötvös and Ligeti.
Kopatchinskaja made her ECM debut in 2014 playing Tigran Mansurian’s Romance, second violin concerto (subtitled “Four Serious Songs”) and Double Concerto (with cellist Anja Lechner) on Quasi parlando. The New York Times reviewer wrote of the “unspeakable tenderness” conveyed by the violinist’s playing, while BBC Music Magazine highlighted her “pure, rich tone and unforced eloquence”. Later in the same year Kopatchinskaja featured in all three works in a programme of chamber music by Galina Ustvolskaya. In 2015 she played alongside fellow violinist Gidon Kremer in Twilight for two violins and chamber orchestra by Giya Kancheli on Chiaroscuro, an album released to mark the composer’s 80th birthday.
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