Evgeni Alexandrovich Korolev (Evgeni Koroliov) |

Evgeni Koroliov

Evgeny Korolev is a unique phenomenon on the international music scene. He does not conquer the audience with external effects, but instills in her a deep, spiritual understanding of the works, for the performance of which he uses all his artistic potential.

At the Moscow Central Music School, the musician studied with Anna Artobolevskaya, and also studied with Heinrich Neuhaus and Maria Yudina. Then he entered the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where his teachers were Lev Oborin and Lev Naumov. In 1978 Korolev moved to Hamburg, where he currently teaches at the Academy of Music and Theatre.

Evgeny Korolev is the winner of the Grand Prix of the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey-Montreux (1977) and the winner of many other international competitions, including the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig (1968), the Van Cliburn Competition (1973) and the Johann Competition Sebastian Bach in Toronto (1985). His repertoire includes works by Bach, the Viennese classics, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, as well as modern academic composers – Messiaen and Ligeti. But the musician is especially devoted to Bach: at the age of seventeen he performed the entire Well-Tempered Clavier in Moscow, later – Clavier Exercises and The Art of Fugue. The recording of the latter was highly praised by the composer György Ligeti, who said: “If I could take just one disc to a desert island, I would choose a Bach disc performed by Korolev: even when I was hungry and thirsty, I would listen to it again and again, and until the last breath.” Evgeny Korolev has performed in the largest concert halls: the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Small Hall of the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, the Tonhalle in Dusseldorf, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Hercules Hall in Munich, the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris and the Olimpico Theater in Rome.

He has been a guest performer at numerous festivals: the Rheingau Music Festival, the Ludwigsburg Palace Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Montreux Festival, the Kuhmo Festival (Finland), the Glenn Gould Groningen Festival, the Chopin Festival in Warsaw, the Spring festival in Budapest and the Settembre Musica festival in Turin. Korolev is also a regular guest of the Italian festival Ferrara Musica and the festival of the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart. In May 2005, the musician performed the Goldberg Variations at the Salzburg Baroque Festival.

Korolev’s recent performances include concerts at the Dortmund Concert Hall, at the Bach Week in Ansbach, at the Dresden Music Festival, as well as in Moscow, Budapest, Luxembourg, Brussels, Lyon, Milan and Turin. In addition, his tour of Japan took place. His performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Leipzig Bach Festival (2008) was recorded by EuroArts for DVD release and by Tokyo’s NHK for TV broadcast. In the 2009/10 season, the musician performed the Goldberg Variations at the Bach Festival in Montreal, on the stage of the Frankfurt Alt Opera and in the Small Hall of the Hamburg Philharmonic.

As a chamber performer, Korolev collaborates with Natalia Gutman, Misha Maisky, the Aurin Quartet, Keller and Prazak quartets. He often performs duets with his wife, Lyupka Khadzhigeorgieva.

Korolev has recorded many discs at the TACET, HÄNSSLER CLASSIC, PROFIL studios, as well as at the Hesse Radio studio. His recordings of Bach’s works resonated with the music press around the world. Many critics equate his discs with the greatest recordings of Bach’s music in history. Recently, the PROFIL studio released a disc of Haydn’s piano sonatas, and the TACET studio released a disc of Chopin’s mazurkas. In November 2010, a disc was released with piano works by Bach, including four-handed ones, performed in a duet with Lyupka Khadzhigeorgieva, arranged by Kurtag, Liszt and Korolev.

For the 2010/11 concert season. Performances are scheduled in Amsterdam (Concertgebouw Hall), Paris (Champs Elysees Theatre), Budapest, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

Source: Mariinsky Theater website