Karine Georgian • cellist

Beginnings

Born into a family of musicians in Moscow, Karine Georgian is today one of the outstanding exponents of the golden generation of Russian string playing. She began her cello studies at the age of five under her father, a well-known cellist and teacher, later studying seven years with Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatoire. After taking the First Prize and Gold Medal at the Third Tchaikovsky International Competition, she launched an international career that has spanned all the countries of the former Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe, the Far East and the United States, debuting in Carnegie Hall with her compatriot Aram Khachaturian conducting his Cello Concerto, and the US premiere with the Chicago Symphony of the same composer’s Cello Rhapsody, also under the composer’s baton — their subsequent recording back in the Soviet Union with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra is no longer in the catalogue but can be heard on Youtube (there are three files).

The International Artist

Today Karine Georgian continues to bring her wealth of experience performing around the world to the concert platform, having appeared with many of the leading orchestras and conductors of our time. Her repertoire encompasses more than forty concertos and a huge range of instrumental and chamber music. She has been associated with leading composers of our day, several of whom have written works for her. These include Alfred Schnittke (Hymn No. 4), Tigran Mansurian (Cello Concerto No. 2), Alexander Goehr (Sonata for cello and piano, op 45), Dmitri Smirnov (Cello Concerto, premiered with the BBC Philharmonic in 1996), Howard Skempton, and Elena Firsova (Chamber Concerto No. 5). Karine Georgian gave the US premiere (1989) of Schnittke’s First Cello Concerto in Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Australian premiere (1994) of Britten’s Cello Symphony with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

The Teacher

In 1980 Karine Georgian settled in London and two years later succeeded André Navarra as Professor of Cello at the Musikhochschule in Detmold in Germany, a position she held for twenty years. Currently she teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She has given masterclasses in England, Italy, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Austria, and annually since 1989 (except for 1998) has taught and played at the Dartington Summer School of Music.

Karine Georgian on CD

Karine Georgian’s current discography on the Chandos, Hyperion, Biddulph, Somm Recordings and Alto labels are listed on a separate page. A new recording for Naxos of transcriptions for cello and piano of works by Robert and Clara Schumann was released by Naxos in March 2011.