Alena Baeva

: PRESS QUOTES

"[Alena Baeva] is of the same calibre as Janine Jansen. She played with the same gripping musicality, she expressed herself physically in the same passionate manner. Her fingers were flying over the strings, her stroke was to her what breath is to a singer, every tone had a meaningful connection to the next. … Her tone [was] warm and sensual, not to mention flawless and accurate." Marjolijn Sengers - Eindhovens Dagblad

"...Scarcely less intense is the Second Violin Concerto with young Alena Baeva, born in 1985 and a protégé early on of Rostropovich and Ozawa. Besides her striking stage presence, Baeva makes more sense of this thorny score than anyone else I can recall; it is almost approachable emotionally despite the starkness typical of late Shostakovich." Huntley Dent, Fanfare Magazine review of Shostakovich DVD

"Meeting the young star violinist Alena Baeva in Beethoven's Violin Concerto was an unexpected change that left no one disappointed. A giant work, it seems simple, but that is exactly why it is so hard to play; yet Baeva’s interpretation gave it a new enchanting glow." SLV Jogfors

: BIOGRAPHY

Alena Baeva is fast emerging as one of the finest violinists of her generation – having already carved out an impressive career to date working regularly as a soloist with orchestras including the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the State Academic Symphony Orchestra “Evgeny Svetlanov”, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the German Radio Orchestra. Alena has worked with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Jurowski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir Neville Marriner, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Paavo Berglund, Kazuki Yamada, Sakari Oramo and Pablo Heras-Casado. Her chamber music partners have included Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, Steven Isserlis, Nikolai Lugansky, Misha Maisky, and Vadym Kholodenko, with whom she has established an 10-year long musical partnership. Recent highlights include the recital at the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, performing with Yuri Bashmet and the English Chamber Orchestra in London’s Cadogan Hall, a performance at Klassik Open Air, with an audience of over 75,000 people, tours in Spain with Thomas Sanderling (Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra) and with Muhai Tang (Brussels Philharmonic) in Belgium and Germany. Other recent highlights include debuts with the Strasbourg Philharmonic, Nordic Symphony Orchestra (Anu Tali) and Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as appearances at the Zaubersee festival in Lucerne, Mecklenburg Vorpommern and Baltic Sea Festivals. Alena recently performed with the Luzern Festival Strings Orchestra, the Weimar Staatskapelle (under Stefan Solyom), as well as with Russian State Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski. The performance of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.2 at the Salle Pleyel in Paris with Valery Gergiev and Mariinsky Orchestra was recorded and released on DVD to great critical acclaim, as part of the complete cycle of Shostakovich’s symphonies and instrumental concertos presented by the orchestra.
Future engagements include the London Philharmonic Orchestra (under Vladimir Jurowski), reinvitations to the Staatskapelle Weimar (under Kiril Karabits) and South Netherlands Philharmonic, a tour with Stuttgart Philharmonic in Germany and Italy, Beethoven’s Triple concerto with Vadym Kholodenko and Alexander Buzlov (under Valery Gergiev), as well as concerts with Freiburg Philharmonic and Israel Camerata Orchestra. Alena Baeva has been appointed Artist in Residence for the season 2016-2017 by the Luxembourg Chamber Orchestra and will be also appearing in numerous recitals and chamber music concerts throughout Europe.
Alena Baeva was born in 1985 to a musical family. At the age of five she began studying the violin in Alma-Ata under Olga Danilova. From 1995 she was a student with Professor Eduard Grach at the Central School of Music of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire and from 2002-2007 at the Moscow Conservatoire itself. Apart from formal studies, her two most important influencers and supporters were Mstislav Rostropovich and Seiji Ozawa. In 2003 she was invited by Rostropovich to study in France where she attended classes by Boris Garlitsky and since 2007 she has participated in Seiji Ozawa’s Academy in Switzerland. Alena has taken part in various master-classes, including most notably, those under Shlomo Mintz, Ida Haendel and Maxim Vengerov. Her major competition victory came in 2001 when she won the Gold Medal at the Henryk Wieniawski competition in Poznan, including the prize for the best performance of a comtemporary work. In 2004 Alena won the Grand Prix at the Moscow International Niccolò Paganini Competition, giving her the right to perform on the Stradivarius violin that belonged to Henryk Wieniawski; she was also awarded the Gold Medal and audience prize at the International Violin Competition in Sendai (2007). Alena’s discography includes recordings of concerti by Bruch and Shostakovich with the Russian National Orchestra (Pentatone Classics), concerti by Szymanowski (DUX) and sonatas by Poulenc, Prokofiev and Debussy (SIMC). She also has a diverse range of recordings made on radio and television in Belgium, Germany, Israel, Poland, Japan, Portugal, Russia and the USA. Her rapidly expanding repertoire includes over forty violin concerti and numerous sonatas and other works from different eras.