Elena
Bashkirova

The Moscow-born pianist Elena Bashkirova studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the masterclass led by her father, the renowned pianist and music teacher Dimitrij Bashkirov.

The various facets of her creative activity – orchestral pieces, chamber music, recitals, song accompaniment and programing – are all equally important to Elena Bashkirova, and her experiences in each area provide a constant source of inspiration for her work in the others.

Elena Bashkirova explores classical and romantic repertoire as well as twentieth-century music; her work has been strongly influenced by collaborations and exchange with artists such as Pierre Boulez, Sergiu Celibidache, Christoph von Dohnányi and Michael Gielen. She enjoys longstanding partnerships with conductors such as Lawrence Foster, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Ivor Bolton, Manfred Honeck and Antonello Manacorda.

Her 2016 recording of Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons, op. 37b” and “Album for the Young, op. 39” received the ICMA Award in the Solo Instrument category. In addition to her solo programmes, she is very passionate about vocal music and accompanies artists such as Matthias Goerne, René Pape, Robert Holl, Dorothea Röschmann and Anna Netrebko.

Twenty years ago, Elena Bashkirova founded the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, an event taking place every year in September which she continues to lead as Artistic Director. The festival has become an important part of Israel’s cultural life. Since 2012, a partner festival has taken place every April at the Jewish Museum Berlin; this has also proved hugely popular.

Writing about her festival work, Julia Spinola observes in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that it is the “combination of her musical enthusiasm and pragmatic inventiveness that makes Elena Bashkirova so compelling as an artist.”

Through guest performances of the “Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival Ensemble” at renowned chamber music series in Berlin, Paris, London, Salzburg, Vienna, Luxembourg, Lisbon, Budapest, Buenos Aires and São Paolo – as well as at international summer festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival, the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Bonn Beethovenfest – the festival’s reach extends far beyond the borders of Israel.

Elena Bashkirova is to perform as a soloist in the Philharmonie de Paris, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Berlin Philharmonie and in Toulouse, collaborating with the Dresden Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the NPRSO, Sofia Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. Alongside her chamber music partners, she regularly appears in Geneva, Lisbon (Gulbenkian) and Paris (Philharmonie) and at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Musikverein in Vienna.

In 2018, Elena Bashkirova receives the Ruhr Piano Festival Prize and an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.