Vadim Repin Biography

Fiery passion with impeccable technique, poetry and sensitivity are Vadim Repin's trademarks.

Born in Siberia in 1971, Mr. Repin began playing the violin at the age of five. Six months later he had his first stage performance. At only eleven Vadim won the gold medal in all age categories in the Wienawski Competition and gave his recital debuts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1985, at the age of fourteen, he made his debuts in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki; a year later he debuted at Carnegie Hall. In 1987 Mr. Repin became the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Reine Elisabeth Concours violin competition.

Mr. Repin has performed with the world's greatest orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Hamburg, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and La Scala, working with leading conductors such as Ashkenazy, Boulez, Bychkov, Chailly, Chung, Conlon, Dohnanyi, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Fedoseyev, Gatti, Gergiev, Jansons, Neeme and Paavo Järvi, Krivine, Levine, Luisi, Marriner, Masur, Mehta, Muti, Nagano, Ozawa, Rattle, Rozhdestvensky, Temirkanov, Thielemann, and Zinman.

Vadim Repin has been a frequent guest at festivals such as the BBC Proms, Rheingau, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Gstaad and Verbier. He regularly collaborates with Nikolai Lugansky and Itamar Golan in recital; other chamber music partners include Martha Argerich, Evgeny Kissin, Andrei Korobeinikov, and Mischa Maisky.

Other recent highlights have been tours with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev; and collaborations with Christian Thielemann in Tokyo, with Riccardo Muti in New York, with Riccardo Chailly in Leipzig, a tour of Australia with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski. He has opened the Grafenegg Festival with live concert on Austrian Television, and has given concerts at the Dresden, Menton and Ljubljana Music Festivals. Mr. Repin appeared in recitals with pianist Itamar Golan in Boston, Washington DC, and New York City and in 2013, returned to the United States for concerts with the London Philharmonic, and recitals in Denver and California. After acclaimed premières of the violin concerto written for him by James MacMillan in London, Philadelphia, New York's Carnegie Hall, the Salle Pleyel in Paris and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Vadim Repin reprised the piece at the 2013 PROMS with the BBC Scottish Symphony and Donald Runnicles, culminating in a sold out Royal Albert Hall performance.

Vadim Repin's many CDs include prize-winning recordings of concerti by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky on Warner Classics. His first recording for Deutsche Grammophon featured the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti, coupled with Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata with Martha Argerich; the second, the Brahms Violin Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto (Truls Mørk, cello) with the Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig and Riccardo Chailly. The London Sunday Times wrote: "It is hard to think of recent recordings of these great works that match the splendour of sound and musical insight here. Superb." He recorded the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov trios with Mischa Maisky and Lang Lang (which won the Echo Classic) and works by Grieg, Janacek and César Franck with Nikolai Lugansky, which won the 2011 BBC Music Award and the Edison Award. A recent screening by Arte and Bavarian Television of an hour long documentary film by Claudia Willke Vadim Repin - A Magician of Sound featured the artist returning to Siberia where his career began and follows him to Berlin, Paris and other European destinations.

Additional awards include the Victoire d'Honneur (2010), France's most prestigious musical award for a lifetime's dedication to music, and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

Engagements last season included chamber music in Paris and Lyon with Denis Matsuev, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Gautier Capuçon, Alexander Kniazev and other friends, recitals in Italy, Spain, France and the United States, and a series at Japan's Pacific Music Festival. Highlights of the current season include a European tour with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Neeme Jarvi, and concerts in Vienna with Kent Nagano and Lionel Bringuier in both the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus. In March 2014 Vadim Repin as Artistic Director presents the first Trans-Siberian Festival of the Arts in Novosibirsk's magnificent new concert hall.

Vadim Repin lives in Vienna and plays on the 1743 Bonjour violin by Guarneri del Gesù.