Viktoria Mullova

Infobox musical artist
Name = Viktoria Mullova


Img_capt =
Img_size = 180
Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
Born = birth date and age|1959|11|27
near Moscow, Russia, USSR
Instrument = Violin
Genre = Classical
Occupation = Violinist
Years_active =
URL = [http://www.viktoriamullova.com www.ViktoriaMullova.com]
Notable_instruments = Violin"
Jules Falk Stradivarius" 1723
Giovanni Battista Guadagnini 1750

Viktoria Mullova ( _ru. Виктория Муллова) (born on 27 November 1959) is a Russian violinist. She is best known for her performances and recordings of a number of violin concerti, compositions by J.S. Bach, and her innovative interpretations of popular and jazz compositions by Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, The Beatles, and others.

Biography

Mullova was born in a town near Moscow, in Soviet Russia. [cite journal | author=John Woodford | title=Through the Looking Glass with Viktoria Mullova | url=http://www.musicteachers.co.uk/journal/index.php?issue=2001-02&file=mullovainterview | journal=MusicTeachers.co.uk Online Journal | volume=2 | issue=8 | year=2001 | accessdate=2008-06-29] After studying at the Central Music School of Moscow and at the Moscow Conservatoire under Leonid Kogan, she won first prize at the 1980 International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki and the Gold Medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1982. During a tour of Finland in 1983, Mullova and her lover, Vakhtang Jordania who posed as her accompanist so they could defect together, left the hotel in Kuusamo, after Jordania told the KGB officer who was watching them that Mullova was too sick from drinking to attend the afterparty. The Stradivari violin owned by the Soviet Union was left behind on the hotel bed. An YLE journalist [ [http://www.iltasanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/uutinen.asp?id=1586557] Iltalehti: "Viktoria Mullovaloikkauksestaan: Vihdoin voin lopettaa valehtelemisen" (in finnish). Retrieved 2008-09-13] accompanied with a photographer drove them with a rented car across the border to Luleå Sweden, and they travelled further to Stockholm. In Sweden, they applied for political asylum. At that time, the Swedish police treated young, on-the-run musicians just like any other political defector and suggested they stay in a hotel over the weekend until the American embassy opened. So for two days they sat under false names in a hotel room, not even daring to go down to the reception desk -- wisely, as it turned out, because their photographs were on the front page of every newspaper. Two days later they were in Washington D.C. with American visas in their pockets.

Mullova has made many recordings including her debut release of the Tchaikovsky and Jean Sibelius violin concertos which was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque.

She formed the Mullova Chamber Ensemble in the mid-1990s. The ensemble has toured Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands and has recorded the Bach violin concertos on Philips Classics. She was nominated for a 1995 Grammy Award for her recording of the Bach Partitas, and she won a 1995 Echo Klassik award, a Japanese Record Academy Award and a Deutsche Schallplattenkritik prize for her recording of the Johannes Brahms concerto. Her recording of the Brahms "B major Trio (no. 1)" and Beethoven's Archduke Trio with Andre Previn and Heinrich Schiff was released in 1995, receiving a further Diapason d'Or.

Mullova's international career as a soloist has included performances with the Philharmonia, the Vienna Symphony, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed as soloist and director with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Mullova plays on the "Jules Falk Stradivarius" from 1723 and an violin made in 1750 by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini. Her bows include a Baroque style bow by a modern maker, a Dodd and a Voirin.

Personal life

Mullova currently lives in Holland Park, London, England with her husband, cellist Matthew Barley and three children: Misha, from her relationship with Claudio Abbado, Katia, from her relationship with Alan Brind, and Nadia, from her marriage with Barley. [cite news | url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-899581-details/Reflections+to+Mullova/article.do | title=Reflections to Mullova | work=The Evening Standard | author=Ian Phillips | date=7 July 2000 | accessdate=2007-08-30] [cite news | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/friday_review/story/0,3605,431917,00.html | title=And this one's by the Bee Gees | work=The Guardian | author=Tim Ashley | date=2 February 2001 | accessdate=2007-08-30]

elected discography

*"JS Bach sonatas" (Onyx 4020). With Ottavio Dantone; 2007
*"Vivaldi 5 violin concertos" (Onyx 4001). With Il Giardino Armonico;2005
*"Beethoven and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos" (Philips, 473 872-2). With Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique/John Eliot Gardiner; 2003
*"Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 3-4" (Philips, 470 292). With Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; 2002
*"Through the Looking Glass" (Philips, 464 184-2). With Matthew Barley and Between the Notes; 2000
*"Bartók and Stravinsky Violin Concertos" (Philips, 456 542-2). With Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Esa-Pekka Salonen; 1997
*"Brahms Violin Sonatas" (Philips, 446 709-2). With pianist Piotr Anderszewski; 1997

References

External links

* [http://www.viktoriamullova.com/index.asp Viktoria Mullova official website]