Violinist Vadim Repin: biography and photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Mankind knows not so many geeks whose abilities would not have died out by active age. They are usually filled with music, art, and mathematical schools, but, as they say, only a few go to the final. That is Vadim Repin. The young violinist from Novosibirsk, who conquered the world, did not stop in his development, did not get lost among the highest names of musical modernity.

The best violinist

He began swiftly and brilliantly. Already six years after he first struck the strings with a bow, Vadim Repin won the International Wieniawski Competition in Lublin, receiving a gold medal. Then he was eleven years old. And at fourteen he was already touring the world: Helsinki, Berlin, Munich, Tokyo…

At fifteen, Vadim played in New York, at Carnegie Hall. At seventeen, he won the International Competition in Brussels, one of the most prestigious. And then he became the youngest laureate in the history of thiscompetition. The Queen of Belgium was so moved by his performance that she gave him citizenship. Now Vadim Repin can live freely in this country too. The great musician of the twentieth century I. Menuhin called the young violinist the most perfect of all whom he had heard, the best of all living.

Takeoff is not over

Since then, the best orchestras in the world have been honored to play the same music with such a virtuoso as Vadim Repin. Performances took place with the Berlin, Boston, Cleveland and Chicago orchestras, with La Scala and the Philharmonic Orchestras of New York, Los Angeles and Amsterdam. Now the awards that Vadim Repin has ever received cannot be counted. Participating in the most famous and prestigious festivals, he almost always took the biggest awards.

Music festivals around the world are varied. Historical ones, such as Salzburg, are not to be missed, and everyone understands why. There are also very popular ones, such as Proms, where it is interesting and useful to play. And there are such atmospheric, informal, full of communication, such as, for example, Swiss in Verbier, not visiting which means leaving yourself without sweets. So says Vadim Repin. His biography is replenished with more and more new facts: how many claims, so many victories.

Concerts

Now he has about a hundred concerts a year at the best venues in the world. His stage partners are always brilliant: Yuri Bashmet, Martha Argerich, Nikolai Lugansky, Mikhail Pletnev,Boris Berezovsky, Evgeny Kissin… It is simply impossible to list them all. The most important thing is that Vadim Repin, a violinist from God, is still gaining height, and his takeoff is not over. Modern life is incredibly accelerating, and this race is difficult to resist, but necessary.

A musician must recover after each concert, which takes a lot of energy and almost all mental strength. Concert plans for professionals, such as Vadim Repin, a violinist, are drawn up for several years in advance and only in the most exceptional cases change. The reason may be the anniversary of one of the musician friends, then one more is added to a hundred concerts a year. But Vadim has far from one friend among his colleagues. Yes, and other situations quite often develop in such a way that it is simply necessary to play additionally. Where does Vadim Repin get the strength for such a busy concert schedule?

The state of happiness

When a person is happy, he can move mountains. And the reasons for the elevated emotional state are very significant since Vadim Repin and Svetlana Zakharova got married. The daughter (there will be no photographs of this little happiness, the parents protect the girl from prying eyes) made the artist's creative energy simply immense. And, of course, the music itself inspires and gives strength.

Vadim Repin at his concerts plays only those compositions that are not selected, but give joy, nourish with their power due to the pleasure received from their performance. For example, he always plays Brahms with enthusiasm and notesthe fact that every note in the works of this composer brings him into ecstasy. The violinist is very fond of the romantic style in music and has many works of this kind in his repertoire. And from the new, modern, he included a violin concerto in his concert programs - an amazing work written by James MacMillan especially for Vadim Repin.

Music school

There was never a single musician in his family, and suddenly a child prodigy appeared - Vadim Repin, a violinist. His biography as a musician began at the age of five, when on August 31 the kid was brought to record at a music school. He wanted percussion instruments or button accordion. But it turned out to be too late, all the places in these departments were taken. They gave Vadim a violin in his hands and said that if he didn’t like it, he would have to come early, but next year.

The boy fell in love with the violin to such an extent that his parents revised their plans for the rest of their lives. Vadim's father was a graphic designer, and his mother was a nurse. In the future, dad earned a living, and mom devoted herself entirely to her son's talent and his support. She had absolutely no musical education and studied at the same time as Vadim, listening to him and delving into the essence. Vadim highly appreciates this complete maternal self-sacrifice, especially since it was the mother who noticed that the little son cleanly, clearly and quickly selects the songs he heard on any instrument.

After the first contest

When eleven-year-old Vadim received almost all the awards of the competitionVenyavsky (and the main - the first, and in different groups there are several distinctions, both from the jury and from the public), the question arose of what to do next, how to develop success? A wise teacher, the most famous today and almost unknown then Zakhar Bron, prepared Vadim for the appointed meeting with Tikhon Khrennikov. The boy learned the most difficult violin concerto in two weeks to please this wonderful composer.

Star sickness had no place and no time to start - the eleven-year-old violinist practiced only his instrument for more than six hours a day. Yes, and my mother severely suppressed any attempts to become proud. And Tikhon Khrennikov fell in love with Vadim Repin very much, just like his student Maxim Vengerov. The composer's author's evenings were often held, where the boys gave concerts together with Zhenya Kisin, a prodigy pianist. It was a happy and carefree time!

Violins

Vadim was lucky with a concert violin made by the extremely talented Novosibirsk master Mikhail Defler, but when Tikhon Khrennikov insisted at the Ministry of Culture that this boy deserved the best instrument in the world, he was given a Stradivarius violin from the state collection. The horizons before the young talent were simply boundless.

Children's, three-quarter (the only one in the world, by the way), she sounded like a full-fledged adult. And three years later, again thanks to the efforts of Tikhon Nikolaevich, Vadim Repin was already playing the full Stradivarius - Venyavsky's Stradivarius. Almost all famous violins have names, because each has its ownbiography. Venyavsky himself used this instrument when he worked at the Mariinsky Theatre.

But then, growing up, Vadim preferred Guarneri, because there is practically nothing earthly in the instruments of the Stradivari school, they are flawless, they sing in the clouds with divine voices. That is, these violins somehow set the rules of the game for the performer, which he is not able to break. Guarneri made his instruments more philosophical: they also have a "sky-high" beautiful sound, but they also know how to sound earthy, "ugly", they do not resist when necessary. And often it is simply necessary, especially if you play modern music, which Vadim has a lot in his repertoire.

Three generations

It was not the first time in 2015 that the Trans-Siberian Art Festival was held in Novosibirsk, where three generations of violinists of the same school performed, including Zakhar Bron himself and his wonderful student Vadim Repin. The photo above clearly shows how much expression, how much energy the performers bring to the stage, you can see from the synchronous swing of the bows that the movement has not stopped!

The program included the most virtuoso known violin pieces – Sarasate, Ravel, Paganini… Zakhar Nukhimovich Bron was the conductor of the chamber orchestra. Young, still far from eighteen-year-old pupils of this master teacher played. Their music amazed the listeners.

Vadim Repin and Zakhar Bron's performance of Prokofiev's Sonata in C major for two violins was the crowning achievement of this magnificent almost three-hour concert. The hall stood up and did nothe let his pets go, because they wrote the name of their native Novosibirsk on all maps of world culture in the largest letters.