Marina Katarzhnova

Born in the Belgorod region in 1979, Marina Katarzhnova graduated from the Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music (violin class of Natalia Fikhtengolts and chamber ensemble class of Lydia Fikhtengolts). She continued her studies at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory where she also completed an assistantship course (violin classes of Prof. Zarius Shikhmurzaeva, Nazar Kozhukhar and Prof. Sergey Kravchenko, and chamber ensemble class of Prof. Alexander Bakhchiev). She has attended master classes by Lucy van Dael, Felix Andrievsky, Marie Leonhardt, Thomas Zehetmair, and Roger Norrington, and won prizes at the Ippolitov-Ivanov National Competition and Yampolsky International Violin Competition. She also received a grant from the New Names Foundation. <<cut>>

Marina Katarzhnova’s repertoire ranges from early Baroque to the latest works by contemporary composers. She has been performing extensively, both in recitals and with chamber ensembles. She has appeared with renowned musicians engaged in authentic performance including Peter Schreyer, Trevor Pinnock, Sigiswald Kuijken, Teodor Currentzis, Roger Norrington, and Christophe Rousset and played in ensembles with Alexey Lyubimov, Alexander Rudin, Nazar Kozhukhar, Alexander Trostyansky, Dmitry Sinkovsky, Elena Revich, Yury Martynov, Alexander Melnikov, Jana Semerádová, Riccardo Minazi, Sergio Azzolini, Rolf Lislevand, to name but a few. 

As a member of Pratum Integrum orchestra led by Pavel Serbin, Marina Katarzhnova appears on the company’s monographic recordings for Caro Mitis, featuring works by Maxim Berezovsky, Dmitry Bortnyansky, Anton Titz, Georg Telemann, Antonio Rosetti, Joseph Woelfl and Jean-Féry Rebel, many of those releases being premieres. For A la Russe label, she recorded Russian premieres of works by Johann Häβler, Joseph Woelfl and other forgotten composers. In 2016, she united with harpsichordist Olga Martynova, flutist Olga Ivusheikova and cellist August Krepak to form the Gnessin Baroque ensemble. She has also appeared with Academy of Early Music, Bach Consort (Russia), Collegium Marianum (Czech Republic), and Baltic Baroque (Estonia). 

Marina Katarzhnova has been the concertmaster of Persimfans orchestra led by Peter Aidu since it was restored in 2009. Since 2017, she has been collaborating with the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble (MCME). In addition, in 2020 she became a soloist of The Studio for New Music ensemble. The musician is involved in Daniel Kramer’s Classics and Jazz project and in projects of the Yuri Lyubimov Foundation. She has also authored a few programs for Eventful Agency. 

Apart from modern and baroque violin, Marina Katarzhnova also plays the viola. In 2012, she performed Two Paths concerto for two violas and orchestra by Sofia Gubaidulina with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andres Mustonen at the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society (with Isabel Villanueva as the first solo viola). 

She has appeared at festivals including Homecoming, December Evenings and Moscow Autumn (Moscow), EarlyMusic (St. Petersburg), and other festivals in Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Norway, and Estonia. 

The violinist’s solo recordings have been released by Caro Mitis, Supraphon, Estonian Record Productions and FancyMusic and featured works by Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Telemann, František Jiránek, and Pavel Karmanov. Katarzhnova has also composed and recorded music for films by Valery Todorovsky, Alexander Proshkin, Nana Dzhordzhadze, Ali Hamroyev and other directors, and appeared in radio and television programs. 

A devoted educator as well as a performer, since 2007 Marina Katarzhnova has been an associate professor at the Faculty of Historical and Contemporary Performance of the Moscow Conservatory, teaching baroque violin and leading the Faculty’s orchestra. She is also a trainer with the Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music, where she was involved in the Summer School in 2016–2018. Marina Katarzhnova has given master classes and lectures on the history of performing arts throughout Russia.