Alena Baeva is one of the brightest stars of violin playing today. Currently Alena Baeva appears to great critical acclaim at the world’s finest concert venues, among them the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, the Great Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonic, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Sala Verdi Hall (Milan), the Louvre Concert Hall, the Salle Gaveau, the Théâtre des Champs Élysées and the UNESCO Hall (Paris), Carnegie Hall (New York), Victoria Hall (Geneva) and the Herkulessaal (Munich).
Alena Baeva appears with leading symphony ensembles including the Grand Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the Svetlanov Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, German Radio Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Danish Royal Opera and the New Russia State Symphony Orchestra. She works with such acclaimed conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Vladimir Spivakov, Mark Gorenstein, Paavo Berglund, Alexander Lazarev and Yuri Bashmet. The musician places particular importance on concert music; her partners have included Аlexander Knyazev, Yuri Bashmet, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Yulian Rakhlin, Shlomo Minz, Itamar Golan, Аlexander Melnikov and Vadim Kholodenko. Alena Baeva also had the honour of meeting and studying under Mstislav Rostropovich.
The musician frequently takes part in various festivals, among them December Evenings and Virtuosi of the 21st Century (USA), the Seiji Osawa Academy (Switzerland) and festivals in Vienna, Athens, Istanbul, Israel, Brazil and CIS nations. She has given acclaimed recital performances at the festivals Violin in the Louvre (France), Ravinia in Chicago (USA), the Juventus festival and the festival in Menton (France).
Alena Baeva was born in 1985 in a musical family. At the age of five she began studying the violin in Alma-Ata under Olga Danilova. From 1995 she was a student with Professor Grach, People’s Artist of the USSR, at the Central School of Music of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire and from 2002-2007 at the Moscow Conservatoire itself. In 2003 she was invited by Mstislav Rostropovich to train in France. At various master-classes she has studied under Ida Gendel, Shlomo Mintz, Boris Garlitsky and Maxim Vengerov.
Alena Baeva has a rich range of recordings made on radio and television in Belgium, Germany, Israel, Poland, Japan, Portugal, Russia and the USA. Her concerts have been broadcast by the TV channels Kultura, TV-Tsentr, Mezzo and Arte as well as on BBC radio.
Alena Baeva has enjoyed great success at competitions. Starting in 1994, she has won first prizes at competitions in Novosibirsk, Warsaw, Germany and at the prestigious Henryk Wieniawski competition in Poznań. She won the Grand Prix at the II Moscow International Niccolò Paganini Competition (2004), giving her the right to perform on the Stradivarius violin that belonged to Henryk Wieniawski, as well as the Gold Medal and audience prize at the III International Violin Competition in Sendai (2007). Alena Baeva has also received the Triumph youth prize (2007).
Alena Baeva’s discography includes recordings of concerti by Bruch and Shostakovich with the Russian National Orchestra (Pentatone Classics/Investment Programmes Fund), concerti by Szymanowski (DUX) and sonatas by Poulenc, Prokofiev and Debussy (SIMC). In 2009 Switzerland’s Orpheum foundation released a disc featuring a live recording from the Tonhalle (Zurich) on which Alena Baeva performed Prokofiev’s First Concerto with the Grand Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedoseyev.
The violinist’s rapidly expanding repertoire includes over forty violin concerti and numerous sonatas and other works from different eras.
Alena Baeva performs on a Stradivarius violin provided by the State Collection of Unique Musical Instruments.
