Vadim Repin
Vadim Repin was born in Siberia in 1971 and won all categories of the Wienawski competition at the age of
eleven. His debuts in Moscow and St. Petersburg followed immediately, and at the age of 14 he
made his debut in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin and Helsinki and one year later at Carnegie Hall in New
York. At 17 he was the youngest ever winner of the Reine Elisabeth Concours. Since then he has
performed with the world’s most important orchestras and conductors and in all the major music
centres.
Vadim Repin recorded the great Russian violin concertos by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and
Tchaikovsky for Warner Classics. For Deutsche Grammophon he recorded the Beethoven Violin
Concerto and the Kreutzer Sonata with Martha Argerich with the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo
Muti, and the Brahms Violin Concerto and Double Concerto (with Truls Mørk, cello) with the
Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly. DG’s trios of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov with
Mischa Maisky and Lang Lang won the Echo Prize, and a CD of sonatas by Grieg, Janacek and César
Franck with Nikolai Lugansky won the BBC Music Award. In 2010 he was awarded the highest
French distinction, the Victoire d’Honneur and the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres for
his services to music. In Beijing he was appointed Honorary Professor of the Central Conservatory
of Music in 2014 and in 2015 the Shanghai Conservatory also awarded him this title.
In April 2014 he became founder and Artistic Director of the annual Transsiberian Arts Festival,
which continues to be enthusiastically received in the magnificent new concert hall of Novosibirsk as
well as venues in Russia, Japan, Israel, Vienna, the USA and France, and has given world premieres
of the violin concerti dedicated to him: “Voices of Violin” by Benjamin Yussupov, “De Profundis” by
Lera Auerbach and in 2018 the violin concert “Dialogue: You and I” by Sofia Gubaidulina, also
commissioned by and dedicated to him. The festival has succeeded in setting priorities for young
musicians – music education plays an important role in Vadim Repin’s life – and he has given season
a series of master classes for young violinists at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, and was a
juror at the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London and the Brussels Concours Reine
Elisabeth.
On a European tour with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, he played the world première
and numerous first performances of the double concerto “Shadow Walker” by Mark-Anthony
Turnage, together with Daniel Hope. Other recent highlights are performances of the programme
“Pas de Deux” together with the internationally renowned ballerina Svetlana Zakharova in Hong
Kong, Muscat, Japan and Korea, concerts at the Enescu Festival Bucharest, in Verbier and at the
Montreal Festival, with the RAI Torino Orchestra, performances of the new violin concerto by
Gubaidulina in Vienna with the RSO and Andres Mustonen, and in Leipzig a soon to be released CD
on Deutsche Grammophon with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Andris Nelsons. Most recently
Vadim Repin premiered Arvo Pärt’s revised version of “La Sindone” to which the composer, marking
his 85th year, added a solo violin part with Vadim Repin in mind.
Vadim Repin plays the 1733 ‘Rode’ violin by Antonio Stradivari.