Nina Kotova
Encyclopedia
Nina Kotova is a Russian Americancellist.
Nina Kotova was accepted by the cello faculty into an adult class of the Moscow Conservatory
at the age of seven, while studying at the Central Music School Pre-Conservatory. Nina gave her first performance as a soloist with an orchestra at the age of 11 and at 15 won First Prize at the Prague International Competition. At 19, after graduating in Moscow, Nina left the Soviet Union and continued studying in Germany and the United States.
In 1996 Nina Kotova made her Debut in the West at the prestigious Wigmore Hall
in London. Since then, Nina Kotova made her Barbican Centre
and Carnegie Hall
debuts and appeared in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory
, Town Hall in New York, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, Orchid Hall and Osaka Symphony Hall in Japan, Wolf Trap and she has performed on the Red Square in Moscow, for the Imperial family of Japan, and at Buckingham Palace. Ms. Kotova has performed as soloist with symphony orchestras across the globe including the St. Louis, Dallas, Prague Radio, Russian State Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Verdi Orchestra of Milan, China Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, Czech Philharmonic, Russian National State Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC, Budapest Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Gulbenkian Symphony and the Royal Opera House
orchestras. Nina has toured the United States, South America and Asia, including a solo performance for the Imperial Family of Japan, an appearance on the MTV
Music Awards at the MET
and a special performance with Sting at the Royal Opera House
in London.
Nina Kotova has recently appeared at the Verbier, Las Canarias and Tuscan Sun festivals, collaborating with artists such as Nikolaj Znaider, Sir James Galway, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lang Lang, Teodor Currentzis, Stephane Deneve, Nicola Luisotti, Libor Pesek. Thomas Vasary, Hélène Grimaud
, Joshua Bell
, Sarah Chang
, Bobby McFerrin
, Ivry Gitlis
, Nobuko Imai
, Julian Rachlin
, Justus Frantz
, Claus Peter Flor
, Long Yu
, Dmitry Sitkovetsky
, and Antonio Pappano
in both chamber music and concerto performances.
Nina Kotova signed a recording contract with Philips Classics in 1996 and released her debut album in 1999. The CD was an instant success, remaining on the Billboard charts for several weeks. Elle
magazine (September, 1999) named Nina Kotova one of the 25 persons to watch in the next century, and she has been the subject of features in Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Reader's Digest, the Wall Street Journal, Classic FM and on television on the Charlie Rose
Show, Hard Talk with Tim Sebastian
, and Breakfast with the Arts. Other recordings include a CD release of her own Cello Concerto recorded with the Philharmonia of Russia conducted by Constantine Orbelian (Delos, 2002), her chart topping, self-titled debut album (Philips Classics, 1999), a recent recording of the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton (Sonny Classics, 2006) and inclusion on the compilation Masters of the Bow (Deutsche Grammophone, 2003) which pays hommage to the greatest cellists of the last 50 years.
Nina Kotova has a keen interest in expanding the repertoire available for cello. Her Cello Concerto was premiered in San Francisco with the Women's Philharmonic with Ms. Kotova as soloist in the 2000 to rave reviews. Octavio Roca of the San Francisco Chronicle
wrote: "Kotova in 2000 stands in defiance of last century's modernism and the new simplicity of so much recent music. Her cello concerto is a complex, gripping affair. Kotova is destined for greatness.
In 2005 Nina premiered her newly written "The Tuscan" Cello Concerto, on an eighteen city tour of the United States, including a Carnegie Hall
performance, in collaboration with the NES Orchestra, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and the renowned writer, Frances Mayes. Ms. Kotova commissioned several leading composers to write a Cello Concerto for her, including another recent collaborator composer Christopher Theofanidis. In 2009 Ms. Kotova performed the world premiere of the Theofanidis Cello Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, following with Asian premiere of the work in Singapore with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jaap Van Zweden.
In August 2003, Nina co-founded and serves as the Artistic Director of the Tuscan Sun Festival
(also known as the Festival del Sole) in Cortona
, Italy, which celebrates music, art, literature, and the art of living with a two week program filled with concerts, exhibitions, and spectacular events.
In 2011 Ms. Nina Kotova and Mrs. Barrett Wissman have been presented the Tuscan-American award for the further development of the cultural relations between Tuscany and United States.
Ms. Kotova has taught as a visiting artist at the University of Texas and has been the subject of numerous features in Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Elle and the Wall Street Journal, as well as being on the covers of Classic FM, Gramophone China, Il Venerdi Italia and Reader's Digest and appearing on television on A&E "Breakfast with the Arts" and the "Charlie Rose Show".
Nina Kotova represents the third generation of musicians in her family. Her father, Ivan Ivanovich Kotov, (1950–1985), who died after years of cultural-political persecution, is regarded as a legendary virtuoso double bassist. She is carrying on the tradition of not only her legendary father, but her teachers and mentors, which include Igor Gavrysh, Valentin Feigin, Boris Pergamenschikov and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Nina Kotova plays the 1673 du Pré
Stradivarius
.
Nina Kotova was accepted by the cello faculty into an adult class of the Moscow Conservatory
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
at the age of seven, while studying at the Central Music School Pre-Conservatory. Nina gave her first performance as a soloist with an orchestra at the age of 11 and at 15 won First Prize at the Prague International Competition. At 19, after graduating in Moscow, Nina left the Soviet Union and continued studying in Germany and the United States.
In 1996 Nina Kotova made her Debut in the West at the prestigious Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
in London. Since then, Nina Kotova made her Barbican Centre
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...
and Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
debuts and appeared in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
, Town Hall in New York, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, Orchid Hall and Osaka Symphony Hall in Japan, Wolf Trap and she has performed on the Red Square in Moscow, for the Imperial family of Japan, and at Buckingham Palace. Ms. Kotova has performed as soloist with symphony orchestras across the globe including the St. Louis, Dallas, Prague Radio, Russian State Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Verdi Orchestra of Milan, China Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, Czech Philharmonic, Russian National State Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC, Budapest Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Gulbenkian Symphony and the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
orchestras. Nina has toured the United States, South America and Asia, including a solo performance for the Imperial Family of Japan, an appearance on the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
Music Awards at the MET
Met
-In the arts:* Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan, New York* Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, New York* Various buildings known as the Metropolitan Opera House* The Metropolitan Ensemble Theater in Kansas City, Missouri-In computing and the Internet:...
and a special performance with Sting at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in London.
Nina Kotova has recently appeared at the Verbier, Las Canarias and Tuscan Sun festivals, collaborating with artists such as Nikolaj Znaider, Sir James Galway, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lang Lang, Teodor Currentzis, Stephane Deneve, Nicola Luisotti, Libor Pesek. Thomas Vasary, Hélène Grimaud
Hélène Grimaud
Hélène Grimaud is a French pianist.-Biography:Grimaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France. Although her autobiography Variations Sauvages suggests a...
, Joshua Bell
Joshua Bell
Joshua David Bell is an American Grammy Award-winning violinist.-Childhood:Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, United States, the son of a psychologist and a therapist. Bell's father is the late Alan P...
, Sarah Chang
Sarah Chang
Sarah Chang is a Korean American violinist. Her debut came in 1989 with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Shortly thereafter, Chang was recognized as a child prodigy. She enrolled at Juilliard School to study music, graduating in 1999 and continuing university studies...
, Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...
, Ivry Gitlis
Ivry Gitlis
Ivry Gitlis is an Israeli violinist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. He has performed with the world's top orchestras , and many of his recordings are considered classics.-Life:Born in Haifa, Mandate Palestine to Jewish immigrants from Russia,...
, Nobuko Imai
Nobuko Imai
, is a Japanese classical violist with an extensive career as soloist and chamber musician. Since 1988 she plays an Andrea Guarneri of 1690.-Biography:...
, Julian Rachlin
Julian Rachlin
Julian Rachlin is a Lithuanian-born violinist and violist.-Background and early life:Born in Vilnius, he emigrated in 1978 with his musician parents to Austria. In 1983, he entered the Konservatorium Wien and studied violin in the Soviet tradition with Boris Kuschnir, while also receiving private...
, Justus Frantz
Justus Frantz
Justus Frantz is a German pianist, conductor, and television personality.- Life :...
, Claus Peter Flor
Claus Peter Flor
Claus Peter Flor is a German conductor. He played the violin as a youth, and later was a conducting student with Rolf Reuter....
, Long Yu
Long Yu
Yu Long is currently the Music Director of the China Philharmonic and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra.Yu was born into a family of musicians in Shanghai and received his early childhood music education from his grandfather the composer Ding Shande...
, Dmitry Sitkovetsky
Dmitry Sitkovetsky
Dmitry Sitkovetsky is a Russian violinist and conductor.- Early life :Dmitry Sitkovetsky was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky and pianist Bella Davidovich. His father died in 1958, when Sitkovetsky was just three years old and the family moved to Moscow where Dmitry...
, and Antonio Pappano
Antonio Pappano
Antonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...
in both chamber music and concerto performances.
Nina Kotova signed a recording contract with Philips Classics in 1996 and released her debut album in 1999. The CD was an instant success, remaining on the Billboard charts for several weeks. Elle
Elle (magazine)
Elle is a worldwide magazine of French origin that focuses on women's fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. Elle is also the world's largest fashion magazine. It was founded by Pierre Lazareff and his wife Hélène Gordon in 1945. The title, in French, means "she".-History:Elle was founded in...
magazine (September, 1999) named Nina Kotova one of the 25 persons to watch in the next century, and she has been the subject of features in Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Reader's Digest, the Wall Street Journal, Classic FM and on television on the Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
Show, Hard Talk with Tim Sebastian
Tim Sebastian
Tim Sebastian is a television journalist. He is the moderator of the New Arab Debates and the Doha Debates, and was the first presenter of BBC's HARDtalk....
, and Breakfast with the Arts. Other recordings include a CD release of her own Cello Concerto recorded with the Philharmonia of Russia conducted by Constantine Orbelian (Delos, 2002), her chart topping, self-titled debut album (Philips Classics, 1999), a recent recording of the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton (Sonny Classics, 2006) and inclusion on the compilation Masters of the Bow (Deutsche Grammophone, 2003) which pays hommage to the greatest cellists of the last 50 years.
Nina Kotova has a keen interest in expanding the repertoire available for cello. Her Cello Concerto was premiered in San Francisco with the Women's Philharmonic with Ms. Kotova as soloist in the 2000 to rave reviews. Octavio Roca of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
wrote: "Kotova in 2000 stands in defiance of last century's modernism and the new simplicity of so much recent music. Her cello concerto is a complex, gripping affair. Kotova is destined for greatness.
In 2005 Nina premiered her newly written "The Tuscan" Cello Concerto, on an eighteen city tour of the United States, including a Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
performance, in collaboration with the NES Orchestra, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and the renowned writer, Frances Mayes. Ms. Kotova commissioned several leading composers to write a Cello Concerto for her, including another recent collaborator composer Christopher Theofanidis. In 2009 Ms. Kotova performed the world premiere of the Theofanidis Cello Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, following with Asian premiere of the work in Singapore with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jaap Van Zweden.
In August 2003, Nina co-founded and serves as the Artistic Director of the Tuscan Sun Festival
Tuscan Sun Festival
The Tuscan Sun Festival is an annual music and lifestyle festival that takes place in the small Tuscan hilltop town of Cortona, in the province of Arezzo...
(also known as the Festival del Sole) in Cortona
Cortona
Cortona is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy. It is the main cultural and artistic center of the Val di Chiana after Arezzo.-History:...
, Italy, which celebrates music, art, literature, and the art of living with a two week program filled with concerts, exhibitions, and spectacular events.
In 2011 Ms. Nina Kotova and Mrs. Barrett Wissman have been presented the Tuscan-American award for the further development of the cultural relations between Tuscany and United States.
Ms. Kotova has taught as a visiting artist at the University of Texas and has been the subject of numerous features in Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Elle and the Wall Street Journal, as well as being on the covers of Classic FM, Gramophone China, Il Venerdi Italia and Reader's Digest and appearing on television on A&E "Breakfast with the Arts" and the "Charlie Rose Show".
Nina Kotova represents the third generation of musicians in her family. Her father, Ivan Ivanovich Kotov, (1950–1985), who died after years of cultural-political persecution, is regarded as a legendary virtuoso double bassist. She is carrying on the tradition of not only her legendary father, but her teachers and mentors, which include Igor Gavrysh, Valentin Feigin, Boris Pergamenschikov and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Nina Kotova plays the 1673 du Pré
Jacqueline du Pré
Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE was a British cellist. She is particularly associated with Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor; her interpretation has been described as "definitive" and "legendary." Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at 28 and led to her...
Stradivarius
Stradivarius
The name Stradivarius is associated with violins built by members of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or reproduce, though this belief is controversial...
.