Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja is an unusually versatile musician, active in both mainstream repertory and the historical performance scene. She has also played contemporary music and has given at least a dozen world premieres.
Kopatchinskaja was born in Chisinau, then in the Moldavian Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, in 1977. Her mother, a violinist, and her father, a percussionist, both played in a regional state folk music ensemble. Kopatchinskaja took up the violin at six, studying with a local teacher who had been a student of David Oistrakh. When she was 17, her family moved to Vienna, Austria, and she enrolled at the University of Music and the Performing Arts, studying both violin and composition. Kopatchinskaja completed her education at the Hochschule für Musik in Bern, Switzerland, where her teacher was Igor Ozim. She continued to live in Bern, where she married and raised a family. In 2002, she made her recording debut on the Megadisc label on an album of chamber works by composer Nikolai Korndorf.
Kopatchinskaja's résumé of concerto appearances with top orchestras is long and includes those with the Vienna, Berlin, and London Philharmonic Orchestras. Kopatchinskaja owns several violins, including a 1780s Neapolitan instrument by Ferdinando Gagliano that she uses in historical performances. She had to give up a loaner Guarneri del Gesù "ex-Carrodus" of 1741, however, because the logistics of importing it into Switzerland proved too arduous. Kopatchinskaja is equally well known in mainstream and historical-performance spheres; in the latter, she has performed with such ensembles as Il Giardino Armonico, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the innovative MusicAeterna in Perm, Russia. Her chamber music partners include cellist Sol Gabetta, clarinetist Reto Bieri, and pianist Markus Hinterhäuser.
Kopatchinskaja's advocacy of contemporary music has been vigorous, and her world premieres include that of her own violin concerto, Hortus animae, with the Camerata Bern in 2014. Increasingly active in the U.S., Kopatchinskaja has served as an artistic partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra since 2014. An inspiring musical administrator, she became the artistic director of the Camerata Bern in 2018 and assumed the same position at the Ojai Music Festival in California that same year. Kopatchinskaja's recording catalog includes albums on the Naïve, Audite, ECM, and Alpha labels; on Alpha, she released Time & Eternity with Camerata Bern in 2019. Her recordings are roughly evenly divided between traditional repertory and contemporary music. She released several more albums on Alpha in the 2020s, including Sol & Pat, with cellist Sol Gabetta, in 2021. By 2024, when she was heard on the trio recital Take 3, her recording catalog comprised well over 30 releases.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Galina Ustwolskaja
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Markus Hinterhauser, Reto Bieri
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on 1 Nov 1998
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Schumann: Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra & Concert Pieces
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Symphonic Music - Released by audite Musikproduktion on 18 Mar 2016
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Michael Hersch: End Stages & Violin Concerto
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Tito Muñoz
Classical - Released by New Focus Recordings on 6 Jul 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Michael Hersch: Carrion-Miles to Purgatory
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Miranda Cuckson, Jay Campbell, Michael Hersch
Classical - Released by New Focus Recordings on 17 May 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Tigran Mansurian: Quasi Parlando
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Anja Lechner, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Candida Thompson
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on 21 Mar 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg , Gustavo Gimeno, Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Symphonies - Released by PENTATONE on 21 May 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Johanna Doderer: Für Violine und Orchester
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Wiener Concert Verein, Johannes Kutrowatz, Eduard Kutrowatz, Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg
Classical - Released by ORF SHOP on 18 Feb 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo