Julia Igonina

Julia Igonina is one of Russia's leading violinists, performing chamber music as well as solo works. Unusually among Russian performers, her work encompasses both classical music and jazz. Igonina was born in Belarus, then part of the Soviet Union, on April 3, 1978. The first part of her training took place in the Belarusian capital of Minsk as she took up the violin at six and then enrolled at the Glinka Music College for studies with Vyacheslav Khavkin. She made her debut at age 14 with the Belarus State Symphony Orchestra. In 1997, Igonina moved to Moscow, where she studied with Eduard Grach, one of Russia's top teachers, at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She began to rack up prizes, not only in Russia (the Novosibirsk International Violin Competition, 1998, and the Yampolsky International Violin Competition, 1999) but also abroad (the Aleksandr Tansman International Competition in Poland, 2000, and the Sion-Valais International Violin Competition in Switzerland, 2002, among others). In 1999, she gave her first of many performances as a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic Society. She performed for Chinese President Jiang Zemin at a New Year's celebration in 2004. Igonina has appeared with important orchestras both in Russia and abroad, including the Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Haifa Symphony in Israel, and the Shenzhen Symphony in China. She has been in demand at festivals such as the Semains Musicales de Tur in France, the Sion-Valais and Semains Musicales de Crans-Montana in Switzerland, and the Efes Classical Music Festival in Turkey. In 2009, Igonina joined the New Russian Quartet, based at the Moscow Conservatory, as first violinist; she has performed widely with that group, which has given radio broadcasts in several countries. In 2014, Igonina made her solo debut with the Partita Ensemble on the Melodiya label, releasing a recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos and Sergei Akhunov's The Seasons. With pianist Daniel Kramer she has toured Russia, Italy, South Korea, and Estonia as part of the Classic & Jazz project. In 2023, Igonina joined pianist Maxim Emelyanychev for the album Jazz: Akhunov, Poulenc, Messiaen on the Aparté label.
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