Anna Vinnitskaya

Following a first solo recital (2008) and a successful Ravel-Prokofiev concerto recording (2010), this is the third recording of Russian pianist Anna Vinnitskaya for Naive.

The recording presents two of the heights of Ravel's piano repertoire, 'Gaspard de la Nuit' and 'Miroirs', performed many times in recital before this recording.

In both works, as well as in the mysterious 'Pavane pour une infant défunte', Anna Vinnitskaya displays the whole range of her skills: intense delicacy, amazing legato and control of dynamics, supple and a strong personal style.

Anna Vinnitskaya, aged 29, is developing an intense concert career in Germany, Belgium and the UK. She won First Prize at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in 2007 and an Echo Klassik award (Germany) in 2011 for her latest recording.

Following a much-praised first recording dedicated to the Russian piano sonata, the second release by Anna Vinnitskaya is of two of the most significant concertos of the 20th century, Prokofiev’s Second, in G Minor, and Ravel’s Concerto in G Major. The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin is conducted by Gilbert Varga.

Anna Vinnitskaya was born in 1983 in the Russian city of Novorossiysk. She began piano lessons at the age of six with her mother, and played her first solo recital at the age of nine. She has won several international awards, most notably first prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels in 2007, and the Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 2008. Still only 27, she has been compared to legendary performers such as Martha Argerich and Sviatoslav Richter. For her first concerto recording, she has selected two masterpieces from the early 20th century, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, and Ravel’s Concerto in G. Anna Vinnitskaya’s debut CD, a programme of works by Rachmaninov, Gubaidulina, Medtner and Prokofiev (V5238), was released on Naïve in April 2009. It was awarded the ‘Diapason d’Or Découverte’, and was nominated for a Midem Classical Award in the Solo Instrumental category.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor was written in 1913 and dedicated to a friend of the composer who had recently committed suicide. It was revised in 1923, and this version remains one of the most technically challenging works in the standard repertoire. Following a highly successful tour of America as piano soloist, Maurice Ravel finished his Piano Concerto in G Major in 1931. The concerto is heavily influenced by jazz, which at the time was highly popular in Paris as well as the USA.

New signing and exclusive Naïve Classique artist, Anna Vinnitskaya makes her much anticipated debut album on the Ambroisie label featuring an all-Russian programme of piano sonatas by Rachmaninov, Medtner and Prokofiev and a piece by Gubaidulina.

This is Anna Vinnitskaya’s first ever recording and, unsurprisingly, it has already been met with high critical acclaim. Since its release in France, it was awarded the “Diapason d´Or” (within the “Discoveries” category) and most recently, the “Choc du mois” by Classica Magazine. After going through a period of pronounced disfavour in the second half of the 19th century, the piano sonata enjoyed a veritable renaissance from the start of the twentieth which was due in large measure to Russian composers. Vinnitskaya here explores the way in which the great Russian virtuoso pianist-composers (Medtner, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov) paid homage in their different ways to a genre that was already more than two centuries old. Also included is Chaconne, written by well-known Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. At only 26, Anna Vinnitskaya has already established a flourishing international career, both in recital and orchestral performances. In 2007, she won first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels becoming only the second woman in the history of the competition for piano to do so, after Ekaterina Novitskaya in 1968.