BIOGRAPHY
Patricia Kopatchinskaja was born in Moldova, the wine-growing country between Roumania and the Ukraine. Both parents are musicians. She studied composition and violin in Vienna and Bern. 2000 she won the international Szeryng-Competition in Mexico and in 2002 the prestigious "International Credit Suisse Group Young Artist Award". During the Season 2002/3 she represented Austria in the concert series "Rising Stars" with debuts in New York and many European capitals. 2004 she received the "New Talent - SPP Award" of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and 2006 the "Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk". Her recent tour as guest director and soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra was voted best chamber music production 2007 by the readers of the Australian Limelight magazine.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja has worked with many leading orchestras (e.g. Philharmonia Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, Wiener Kammerorchester, Mozarteum-Orchester Salzburg, Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin, SWR-Radiosymphonieorchester Stuttgart, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, Finnish Radio Symphonic Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic, Tschaikowsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo and Tokyo Philharmonic) and conductors (e.g. Boreyko, de Billy, Fedoseyev, Goodman, Herreweghe, Jansons, Neeme and Paavo Järvi, Kim, Litton, Nelsons, Norrington, Oramo, Petrenko, Pons, Russell Davies, Schiff, Skrowaczewski). She has appeared in important concert halls, e.g.: Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center New York, Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall London, Sidney Opera House, Berliner Philharmonie, Musikverein Wien, Mozarteum Salzburg, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Suntory Hall Tokyo.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja is regularly invited to significant festivals, to mention but a few: Lucerne Festival, Menuhin-Festival Gstaad, Salzburger Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, Wien Modern, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Heidelberger Frühling, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, the Warsaw Beethoven Easter-Festival and the chamber music festivals of Mondsee, Delft, Kuhmo, Oxford, West Cork and Antalya.
Piano partners include Polina Leschenko, Fazil Say, Mihaela Ursuleasa and Henri Sigfridsson. With him and the cellist Sol Gabetta she forms occasionally a piano trio.
Upcoming events include premieres of Fazil Says new violin concerto in Germany, Austria, France, Turkey and Japan, concerts with the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra and Heinrich Schiff, two tours and recordings with the Orchestre des Champs Elysées and Philippe Herreweghe (Beethoven), tours with the SWR-orchestra and with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie both under Sir Roger Norrington, debuts with the Stuttgart and the Zürich Chamber Orchestra as well as appearances at the Festivals of Salzburg, Schwetzingen, Montpellier and Gstaad.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja has signed a major recording contract with the French label naïve. The first 2 CDs contain a duo recital with Fazil Say and Fazil Say´s new violin concerto “1001 Nights in the Harem”, recorded live at the world premiere in Lucerne February 2008. A newly recorded Beethoven violin concerto together with both romances and a concerto fragment will be released in 2009. Kopatchinskaja, playing on gut strings, is joined by the Orchestre des Champs Elysées and Philippe Herreweghe. A previous release in 2008 on the col legno label has contemporary violin concertos by Austrian composers Zykan, Resch and Kühr. Several earlier CDs document contemporary works by Johanna Doderer, Nikolai Korndorf, Dmitri Smirnov and Boris Yoffe.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja composes occasionally herself and she is not afraid of contemporary music. She gave the first performances of the violin concertos written for her by Johanna Doderer, Otto Zykan, Gerald Resch, Gerd Kühr, Jürg Wyttenbach , Fazil Say and others. Pieces were dedicated to her by Richard Carrick, Violeta Dinescu, Michalis Economou, Ludwig Nussbichler, Ivan Sokolov, Boris Yoffe and many others. She also likes to improvise solo or with others (e.g. Barry Guy, Charlotte Hug or Mahmoud Turkmani). Patricia Kopatchinskaja plays a violin by Pressenda from 1834, according to the The STRAD magazine "a colourful-sounding instrument, whose viola-like quality lends her playing exceptional tonal interest". Acting as good-will ambassador for the charity Terre des Hommes, Patricia Kopatchinskaja especially supports projects for children in Moldova.