Wladimir Kossjanenko. Biography

"One of the best violists I have ever heard" reported 2000 Tribuna Lodzka after the first Polish performance of "Don Quixote" by Richard Strauss.

The Strad – London informed in 1997: “Wladimir Kossjanenko set the place alight with his Bach Chaconne” and wrote in 2002: “Mr. Kossjanenko has developed into the very model of a modern Russian violist”.

Russian born Austrian violist Wladimir Kossjanenko began his musical education at the age of five. After his graduation from the special music school in Alma-Ata he studied with Professor Vladimir Stopitchev at the Conservatory in St. Petersburg from 1986 to 1991. Whilst studying he appeared as a principal violist and assistant conductor of the "Leningrad Soloists". In 1991, following an invitation from the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra directed by Claudio Abbado, he came to Vienna. He continued his studies at the Vienna University for Music and Performing Arts with Professor Hans Peter Ochsenhofer and Professor Thomas Kakuska, and later with Professor Michael Kugel at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent, Belgium.
He concluded his studies in 1999, graduated with distinction and Master of Arts degree.
From 1994 to 1998 he was a principal violist of the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra and Graz Opera House.

He has won prizes in many competitions, including the Union Fund and Management Prize in 1997 at the 6th International Lionel Tertis viola competition (Isle of Man, England), and in the same year won the special prize and medal of the Perrenoud Foundation (Neuchâtel, Switzerland).  Wladimir Kossjanenko became a member of the Hugo Wolf Quartet in 1998. In November 1999 they were awarded the European Prize for Chamber music in Paris.

With the Hugo Wolf Quartet he made extended concert tours throughout Europe, North and South America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Korea and Japan. He has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in many major concert halls in the world with appearances in Carnegie Hall New York, National Gallery of Art Washington D.C., Phillips Collections Washington D.C., Skirball Center Los Angeles, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berliner and Kölner Philharmonie, Cité de la Musique Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts Bruxelles, Wigmore Hall London, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Tonhalle Zürich, Hercules Hall Munich, Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonie Lodz, Moysze-Saal Bratislava, Mozarteum Salzburg, Wiener Musikverein and Konzerthaus, also at the festivals in Edinburgh, Colmar, Prague, Jerusalem, Dortmund, Schwetzingen, Geneva as well at the L’été musical dans la vallée du Lot, Schubertiade Feldkirch, Styriarte, Klangbogen Vienna, Carinthischer Sommer, Splitsko Ljeto.

He recorded numerous CDs as a soloist with the pianist Vesna Podrug and as a chamber musician with the Hugo Wolf Quartett, Yuliya Gorenman, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Xavier Phillips, Igor Malinowsky; he made numerous recordings with Michael Kugel, Paul Meyer, Nicholas Angelich, David Grimal, Alois Posch, Mihaela Ursuleasa, Christian Altenburger, Christoph Berner, Ilya Konovalov. He made also a TV production for “Unitel” and numerous recordings for BBC, Deutschland Radio Berlin, Süd-West-Funk Baden-Baden, Radio France Paris, ORF Austria, RAI Italy, Minnesota Public Radio, Radio of Japan, Israel Radio etc.

He appeared as a soloist with Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, Jerusalem Festival Orchestra, Capella Lutherana Vienna, Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra Lodz, Vienna Academic Symphony Orchestra and many others.

Wladimir Kossjanenko plays a viola by Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza (1775). This instrument has been lent free of charge to him by Fazienda Ipiranga, Guaranesia/Minas Gerais, producer of the premium coffee “Blue de Brasil”.