Alexander Zagorinsky
was born in 1962, in Moscow. In 1986, he graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory where he studied cello with professor Natalia Shakhovskaya, and a year earlier he won a prize of the All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians in Kishinev. After he completed an assistantship-internship course in 1988, he received a prize at the international competition in Trapani, Italy, and in 1990 he won the sixth prize of the IX International Tchaikovsky Competition. Between 1991 and 2000, Alexander Zagorinsky was the rst concertmaster of the group of cellos of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, a soloist/concertmaster of the State Chamber Orchestra of Russia between 2001 and 2007, and simultaneously involved in performing and educational activities. At present, he is a professor of the Russian Gnessins Academy of Music.

Alexander Zagorinsky has a reputation of excellent ensemblist preforming regu- larly with many prominent musicians such as Igor Zhukov, Yuri Rozum, Yulia Turkina, Marina Yevseyeva, Nikolai Kapustin and Mikhail Dubov (piano), Alexei Semyonov and Alexei Shmitov (organ), Alexander Trostyansky (violin), Dora Schwarzberg (violin), Nora Romanoff (viola), Alexander Korneyev ( ute), Evgeny Nepalo (oboe), Evgeny Petrov (clarinet), Alexei Volkov (saxophone) and Natalia Zagorinskaya (soprano).

Zagorinsky’s repertoire includes cello music of four centuries – masterpieces of European baroque, concertos by Haydn, Schumann, Saint-Saëns, Shostakovich, Deni- sov, Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, sonatas and ensembles by Beethoven, Brahms, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Debussy and Messiaen, Tansman, Korngold, works by contemporary composers such as Lera Auerbach, Nikolai Kapustin, Jonathan Östlund, Jon Appleton, Vladimir Ryabov, Olga Viktorova and many others.

Alexander Zagorinsky has been a judge of a number of international competitions, participated in festivals of classical and modern music in Russia and overseas. He has been awarded the title of Honoured Artist of Russia and the Order of Friendship.

Finding one’s “own” concertmaster is a very important step on any truly gifted instrumentalist’s artistic path because his/her artistic individuality can be manifested only in a genuinely harmonious ensemble. Such were Lev Oborin for David Oistrakh, Daniel Barenboim for Jacqueline du Pré, and Brooks Smith selected by Jascha Heifetz from numerous candidates. The first meeting of Alexander Zagorinsky and Norwegian pianist Einar Steen-Nøkleberg took place in 2002 at a concert dedicated to Edvard Grieg at the Russian Academy of Music. The performers did not know each other on the eve of the concert and had only one rehearsal before they performed together, but the result seemed miraculous – the audience were con dent that the two musicians of different generations and performing traditions, who actually played for the first time on the same stage, were a well-coordinated ensemble of many years, that’s how common their understanding and hearing of the music they performed were.

Einar Steen-Nøkleberg
(born 1944) is one of the best Norwegian musicians of the present. The President of the International Edvard Grieg Society and Chairman of the International Edvard Grieg Piano Competition in Oslo, he recorded a complete collec- tion of piano works by the great Norwegian composer (released on Naxos Records) that won a worldwide acclaim. According to BBC Sunday Review, his performance of Grieg’s concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra is the best recording of this work ever. Professor of the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo, the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Hannover, Germany, and the Beijing Conservatory, Einar Steen-Nøkleberg performs and gives masterclasses around the globe, including the famous Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, and takes part in international piano competitions as a judge. The pianist’s discography, comprising works by Norwegian and European clas- sical composers, numbers over fty CD’s, and his book Onstage with Grieg received two Grieg Awards. Steen-Nøkleberg is a Knight of the St. Olav Order, appointed by the King of Norway for his outstanding contribution to Norwegian music.