Cello Recital

"Listen, for example, to how subtly she handles the many unconventional tonal effects in the piece. The first movement's plucked glissandos slither and crawl around the fingerboard with complete freedom, and I also admired the sense of mystery and ghostliness in the way Vassilieva muses over the quotations from Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta."
- Michael Jameson, Classics Today, 2 July 2002

The cellist Tatjana Vassilieva was born in Novosibirsk in 1977. At the age of six she began studying the cello with Yevgeni Nilov at the local conservatory and from 1989 until 1995 she studied with Maria Yuravliyova at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, and from 1995 to 1998 with Walter Nothas at the Munich Musikhochschule, where she graduated with distinction. Since 1998 she has been a pupil of David Geringas in his master class at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in Berlin. She began her public career at the age of twelve and has appeared in recitals and concerts in Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Spain, Italy, Greece, Switzerland and Germany, winning for herself an international reputation. As a soloist she has performed with many prestigious orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the Staatskapelle in Weimar, the Basle Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Athens National Orchestra, under distinguished conductors such as Dimitri Kitaenko, Michail Jurowski and Sakari Oramo.

Tatjana Vassilieva has received scholarships and awards at numerous international competitions. In 1994, at the age of seventeen, she was awarded second prize at the ARD Competition in Munich, as well as the Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award, which included a concert tour of Japan. In 1999 she won first prize at the Third Adam International Cello Competition in New Zealand. At the International Izuminomori Competition Osaka, in May 2001, she won first prize as well as the Grand Prix and the Audience Prize. In October 2001 at the Seventh Concours de Violoncelle Rostropovich in Paris she was awarded, unanimously by the jury, the First Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris.

As a chamber musician Tatjana Vassilieva has performed at major international festivals with fellow musicians that include Tatjana Geringas, Cyprien Katsaris, Yuri Bashmet and Eugene Istomin. She has an extensive repertoire, ranging from Bach to contemporary music, and has performed several world premières. Many of her concerts have been recorded for television and radio.