Ivashkin, Alexander Vasilievich

He graduated from the Gnesins Music and Pedagogical Institute (1971) in two specialties: as a cellist and musicologist. He was also engaged in conducting at the Moscow Conservatory in the class of G. N. Rozhdestvensky , B. E. Khaykin and V. K. Polyansky . Candidate of Art History (1979). Doctor of Arts (1993). In 1978-1991, the solo cello of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra and the artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater soloists (together with conductor A. N. Lazarev ), as well as a leading music critic for the magazines Musical Life and Soviet Music . In 1990-1999, he was a professor of cello and chamber ensemble at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Since 1999, professor and head of the Goldsmith College's Performing Arts Faculty of the University of London and director of the Center for Russian Music under him ^[1] . He toured as a cellist in more than 40 countries. Since 1995, he has been the artistic director of the Adam International Festival and Cello Competition ^[2] .

Died of cancer. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow ^[3] .

As a performer, he was mainly a specialist in music of the 20th century. He performed world premieres of the works of John Cage , Mauricio Kagel , Krzysztof Penderecki , Arvo Pärt , Edison Denisov , Sofia Gubaidulina , Gia Kancheli , Gabriel Prokofiev, Alexander Raskatov , Vladimir Tarnopolsky , Nikolai Korndorov , Faradzh Viktorov , Faradzh Viktorov , Faradzh Viktorov , Faradzh Viktorov works by leading composers Australia and New Zealand - Peter Sculthorpe , Brett Dean , Larry Sith, Gillian Whitehead , Chris Cree Brown, Brigid Beasley (recorded on a double CD in album Under the Southern Cross "). Among the recordings of Ivashkin are all compositions for cello and piano by Prokofiev ( 1994 , with pianist Tamas Veshmash), Alexander Cherepnin ( 1999 , with pianist Jeffrey Tozer), Nikolai Roslavets ( 2001 , with pianist Tatyana Lazareva), Rakhmaninov ( 2004 , with the pianist ); cello concerts of Vivaldi, Haydn, Schumann, Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Grechaninov , Myaskovsky ; all Shostakovich’s cello concerts, including the orchestrations of the Schumann Concert and the Tishchenko Concert; all cello concerts of Prokofiev; all cello concerts by Schnittke, including Dialogue, Concert for Three and Concerto Grosso No. 2 (together with Tatyana Grindenko ); all canceli cello concerts. Of particular importance for Ivashkin was the figure and music of Alfred Schnittke , who dedicated the Third Anthem for the cello accompanied by the ensemble and the composition for solo cello “Klingende Buchstaben”.

The musician’s work with the legacy of Johannes Brahms was somewhat different: based on archival research, Ivashkin reconstructed the original version of Brahms’s Double Concerto for violin and cello and orchestra (Op. 102), written exclusively for cello and orchestra, and for the first time performed it in the hometown of composer Hamburg in Hamburg 2004 and later in Moscow (the Great Hall of the Conservatory, with the Orchestra of the Symphonic Chapel of Russia, February 2005) and in Petersburg (with the Honored Collective of the Republic, the Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, February 2 007).

He constantly performed as a soloist with leading orchestras in many countries. Among them are the Honored Collective of the Republic Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra , the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bolshoi Theater Symphony Orchestra , the Russian State Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra (Moscow), the Ural Symphony Orchestra (Yekaterinburg), Hamburg Philharmonic orchestra (Germany), Berlin Symphony orchestra (Germany), the Philharmonic orchestra of South Westphalia (Germany), the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra , the Symphony Orchestra of the Italian Radio in Turin , Symphony Orchestra of the BBC in London, the London Philharmonic Orchestra , the leading orchestras of Australia (Perth, Hobart, Melbourne), the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra , the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (South Africa), the Symphony Orchestra in Reno (USA) , Boulder (USA), New Jersey (USA), Winnipeg Philharmonic Orchestra (Canada), with Venezuelan National Orchestra, with Geneva, London, Florence, New Zealand and Amsterdam chamber orcs Strum, chamber orchestra "Pentadr" (Montreal, Canada), as well as the Studio for New Music Moscow, the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra "Sofia" ^[4] .

Ivashkin also performed as a conductor in Russia, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

As a musicologist made his debut with a pamphlet on the life and work of Svyatoslav Knushevitsky (M .: Muzyka, 1977), it was followed by a similar work on Daniil Saffron ( 1980 ); later Ivashkin also prepared two books about Mstislav Rostropovich - in Germany on his 70th birthday (Rostrospective: On the Life and Achievement of Mstislav Rostropovich. Frankfurt-Schweinfurth: Reimund Maier Verlag, 1997. - 142 pp. ^[5] ) and in Japan to the 80th anniversary (Rostropovich. - Tokyo: Shunjusha Publishing Company, 2007. - 280 pp.). Ivashkin dedicated monographs to Krzysztof Penderetsky ( 1983 ) and Charles Ives ( 1991 ). However, Alfred Schnittke occupies a special place in the works of Ivashkin, as well as in his performing work. In 1987 , he published in the publishing house "Soviet Composer" an annotated catalog of the composer's works (reprinted in Milan in 1988 ). In Turin in 1993, in 1996 in London, Ivashkin’s popular books about Schnittke were published, and in 1994 Ivashkin prepared and printed the book “Conversations with Alfred Schnittke”, which had survived four more editions by 2006 , including in Germany (1998), United States (2002) and Japan (2003). In 2004, a collection of articles by Alfred Schnittke on music was edited by Ivashkin. In total, he has published 18 books and more than 200 articles. Since 2007, Ivashkin has been the editor-in-chief of the Alfred Schnittke Works, published by Composer Publishing House (St. Petersburg) together with the Schnittke archive at the University of London.

• Official site (English) (Russian)
• Alexander Ivashkin on the Naxos website
• “He wanted to say a lot, but there was no time to record” : Interview with Alexander Ivashkin about Alfred Schnittke // Newspaper, November 23, 2004
• Interview on OpenSpace.ru on the 75th anniversary of A. Schnittke, 2009
• Has cello, will travel. By Julian Haylock. The strad
• Adam International Cello Festival & Competition
• Center for Russian Music in Goldsmiths College
• Alfred Schnittke Archive
• Goldsmiths Music Department
• Obituary
• Obituary
• Obituary at Limelight Magazine
• Alexander Ivashkin is remembered by Vladimir Tarnopolsky, Valery Polyansky, Alexander Rudin, Ivan Sokolov