Annette Unger & Robert Umansky
Biography Annette Unger & Robert Umansky
Annette Unger
The soloist and sought-after chamber music partner Annette Unger was appointed in 1992 as one of the youngest violin professors at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, where she previously studied with Karl Unger. She received further artistic guidance from Eduard Melkus (violin) and Semjon Skigin (chamber music). Currently, her students regularly win prizes at international competitions and obtain engagements as musicians, professors, and lecturers.
Unger performs regularly in Germany, Russia, Austria, France, Norway, the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Spain, Korea, Switzerland, and Japan with such ensembles as the St. Petersburg State Capella Symphony Orchestra, Elbland Philharmonie Sachsen, and Dresdner Kapellsolisten, and is invited to international festivals. Her broad repertoire encompasses frequent world premieres, including works by Dresden composers.
Unger’s CD recordings with GENUIN and other labels featuring works from Baroque to contemporary have received wide acclaim from the press. She supports young talents as Artistic Director of the Meissen International Music Academy, which she founded, and as head of the Szymon Goldberg International Competition for Violin and Viola. She conducts masterclasses in Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Korea, and the USA, and serves as a jury member at international competitions.
Annette Unger plays a violin by Cornelius Schneider-Marfels, Erlangen 2008.
Robert Umansky
was born in 1985 in Kharkov, Ukraine, where he studied at the University of Arts under Tatiana Werkina. He completed further studies with Michael Leuschner in Freiburg (piano) and with Tatevik Mokatsian (chamber music), earning the highest marks. He has also participated in masterclasses including the Forum Musiktage in Madrid.
Umansky has won prizes at competitions in Göttingen and Ettlingen, as well as Second Prize at the 2001 International Competition for Young Pianists “in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz” in Kiev. In 2013 he was awarded the prize for the best interpretation of a contemporary work at the Fifth Arthur Lepthien Piano Competition in Freiburg.
He has frequently appeared as a soloist with orchestra, performing piano concertos by Mozart, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev, and has participated in audio productions, including with the Saarländischer Rundfunk. As a sought-after duo partner, he regularly performs with a number of instrumentalists, and is invited as a pianist to international festivals, competitions, and masterclasses.
Since October 2017, Robert Umansky has served as lecturer in instrumental accompaniment for strings at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden.
