ANASTASIA KOBEKINA & ANNA FEDOROVA

Anastasia Kobekina

Born into a musician family, Anastasia Kobekina was born in Ekaterinburg in 1994. She began playing the cello at the age of four and gave her first concert with orchestra at six. Since then, she has performed with major orchestras such as the National Orchestra of Russia, the Virtuosos of Moscow, the Mariinsky Orchestra and the Vienna, Warsaw and Camerata Baltica Symphonic Orchestras. Anastasia has collaborated with many renowned conductors such as Vladimir Spivakov, Krzysztov Penderecki, Heinrich Schiff or Valery Gergiev. She also performs as a soloist in prestigious places such as the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Lincoln Center in New York, the hall of the Moscow Conservatory and the Bolshoi Theater. After graduating from the Moscow Central Music School in 2012, she continued her studies as a young soloist in the prestigious Kronberg Academy in Germany with Franz Helmerson, thanks to the Steigenberger / Rath scholarship. Value not waiting for the number of years, Anastasia has performed in chamber music with big names in classical music like Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Fazil Say, Denis Matsuev, Vladimir Spivakov and Andras Schiff. Anastasia has won several competitions and thus won the Landgraf von Hessen prize as well as the Boris Pergamenschikow scholarship from the Kronberg Academy in Germany, the Academy Prize from the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and in 2015 the 1st Prize from the Tonali Music Competition. Anastasia plays on a Stephan Von Baehr cello, on loan from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. After having heard her in the Haydn concerto conducted by Vladimir Spivakov during a concert at the Annecy Classic Festival in 2014, Pascal Escande decides to invite him to the Festival d’Auvers-sur-Oise the following year with his pianist friend, Anna Fedorova, Denis Antoine Prize from the AVC Charity Foundation of the International Piano Campus Competition, to produce her first DVD under the DiscAuverS label.

Anna Fedorova

Anna Fedorova was born in 1990 into a musician family, in Kiev in Ukraine; this is where she started learning the piano at the age of five. She very quickly demonstrates an extraordinary musical maturity and technical qualities which will then appeal to many audiences around the world. Critics first compared the style of Anna Fedorova to the one of the beginnings of Alicia de Larrocha and Martha Argerich; it is true that we are impressed by her gentle modesty combined with wild expressiveness, with particular attention paid to the sound. Anna Fedorova already leads an impressive career which has enabled her to play in the most prestigious halls of Europe, North and South America: the Great hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palace of Fine Arts and the hall Nezahualcoyotl de Mexico, the Colon theater in Buenos-Aires, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Philharmonie in Warsaw, the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo… Among the major festivals where she has already played, let us mention The International Keyboard Festival and Institute in New York, Arthur Rubinstein Piano Festival in Lodz, The International Piano Festival in Trieste, The Orpheum Music Festival in Zurich … In March 2009, Anna Fedorova performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam the Premiere of the 5th Piano Concerto by Rachmaninoff / Warenberg, an arrangement of Rachmaninov’s second symphony with the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martin Panteleev: the success is huge. His recent appearances as a soloist have been with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Alejo Perez, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Howard Griffiths, the Philharmonic of the Nations conducted by Justus Franz, the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the Slovak Sinfonietta, the National Orchestra of Ukraine conducted by Volodymyr Sirenko, and many others… Anna Fedorova won 14 prizes in international piano competitions: the First Prize of International Rubinstein In Memoriam piano competition (Poland 2009), the “Prix Denis Antoine” from the AVC Charity Foundation at the Piano Campus competition in Pontoise in 2012, the 2nd Prize from the Frederic Chopin competition in Narva (Estonia), the 1st price from the Tbilisi International Young Pianists competition in Georgia, where she also received the special prize “Best pianist of the competition”, the Dorothy McKenzie award from the International Keyboard Institute and Festival of New York, USA, for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008, the 2nd Prize and Special Prize Frédéric Chopin at the 4th Moscow International Frederick Chopin Competition for young pianists and most recently the 3rd Prize and the Audience Prize at the International Piano Competition of Lyon. In 2008 Anna Fedorova graduated from Lysenko Music College for Gifted Children in Kiev, Ukraine, in the class of Professor Boris Fedorov. Since 2008, she has been studying with Professor Leonid Margarius at the Académie international Piano Academy in Italy. Anna Fedorova’s recent performances on stage include a series of concerts in Japan with the Tokyo New City Orchestra, recitals at the Warsaw Philharmonic, a recital at the Salle Cortot in Paris in May 2012 and another at the Concertgebouw in Paris. Amsterdam. At the 2012 Piano Campus, Anna wins the Denis Antoine Award from the AVC Charity Foundation. In the summer of 2012, Anna Fedorova was able to improve with Alfred Brendel at the Academy of the Verbier Festival (Switzerland) of which she is the Laureate 2012. The last two seasons have been crucial for Anna Fedorova with many concerts in Poland, The Netherlands, Mexico, Switzerland, Carnegie Hall in New York and France: Paris-Vincennes, Pontoise, Lyon and many summer festivals where she was invited… Note that the video of her recording of Rachmaninoff’s second Piano Concerto, recorded live at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, has exceeded 6 million views on Youtube, an absolute record in the field! The 3rd Piano Concerto by Rchmaninoff follows the same path. The DiscAnnecY label has released Anna Fedorova’s first CD: a recital devoted to Brahms, Chopin, Liszt and celebrated at a very first great recital at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris, which was sold out on this occasion. Many concerts with orchestra and recitals are scheduled in France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Brazil in the coming seasons.