Biography - Bereznjicki Mikhail

Mikhail Bereznitsky, an ‘Honoured Artist of Russia’ and Associate Professor at the Moscow State Conservatoire from 2002 to 2016, was described by the composer Rodion Shchedrin as ‘one of the most brilliant violists in the world’. He was already a reputed violinist, experienced as soloist, ensemble player and leader of a number of outstanding chamber ensembles and orchestras, performing standard repertory, new music and rock, when at the age of 26 he realised that the sound and style of the viola lay much closer to his heart and, after a month of study, he made his debut as violist in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. With a training as violinist at the Conservatoire at the hands of such distinguished teachers as Maya Glezarova and Nadezhda Beshkina and experience in ensemble-playing with such musicians as Alexander Bakhchiev, Valentin Berlinsky, Mikhail Kopelman and others, he soon mastered the viola, and in half a year he enrolled at the Conservatoire as a postgraduate viola student in the class of Yuri Bashmet. During these years he was active as both violist and violinist, often playing both instruments in the same concert.

Already a winner of International Bellini Chamber Ensembles Competition in Italy in 1990, he then began to prepare for solo competitions. In 1997, after eighteen months of study, he became a laureate of the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition on the Isle of Man, the first Russian prize-winner at that competition since its establishment in 1980. Later he won the Yuri Bashmet Moscow International Viola Competition.

               Since then he has performed in all of the world’s major venues, and with some of its most outstanding musicians, among them Ivri Gitlis, Yuri Bashmet, Kolja Blacher, Natalia Gutman, Gidon Kremer, Alexei Lubimov, Aleksander Rudin and Naum Shtarkman. The festivals at which he has appeared include December Nights in Moscow, Moscow Autumn, Berliner Festwochen, the oleg Kagan Musikfest in Germany, the Bath International Music Festival and Gaudeamus in the Netherlands.

               Mikhail Bereznitsky has given the first Russian performances of works of York Bowen, Mikhail Bronner, Morton Feldman, Pavel Karmanov, Michael Nyman, Nino Rota, Efrem Podgaits, Valentin Silvestrov and others, and some of the leading Russian composers of the day have dedicated viola works to him.