Patricia Kopatchinskaja

Source: harrisonparrott.com

Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s focus is to get to the heart of the music, to its meaning for us – now and here. With a combination of depth, brilliance and humour, Kopatchinskaja brings an inimitable sense of theatrics to her music. Described by The New York Times “a player of rare expressive energy and disarming informality, of whimsy and theatrical ambition”, Kopatchinskaja’s distinctive approach always conveys the core of the work, whether it is with an out-of-the-box performance of a traditional violin repertoire classic or with an original staged project she presents as experimental performance dramaturge.

A boundary-crosser who thrives on the challenge of musical experiments and describes contemporary music as her lifeblood, her absolute priority is music of the 20th and 21st century and the collaboration with living composers such as Francisco Coll, Luca Francesconi, Michael Hersch, Márton Illés, György Kurtág, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Aureliano Cattaneo, Stefano Gervasoni, and many others. Kopatchinskaja directs staged concerts at venues on both sides of the Atlantic and collaborates with leading orchestras, conductors, and festivals worldwide. Starting from the 2024/25 season, she will serve as the Artistic Partner of the SWR Symphony Orchestra. A virtuoso, storyteller, and all-around phenomenon, her artistic direction will involve designing her own programmes, which will include both established concert formats and innovative theatrical and interdisciplinary approaches. Among these is the staged concert The Peace Project, which reflects on centuries of existential suffering caused by war through a kaleidoscope of baroque and modern works up to the present day. The project addresses the numerous reports from war zones, the violent disruption of daily life, and the constant fear for one’s life and loved ones. Kopatchinskaja will also be Artist in Residence at the 2025 Klarafestival, where she will continue to actively support themes related to environmental protection and sustainability in innovatively curated projects. Furthermore, she holds the position of Associated Artist of the SWR Experimentalstudio, one of the most important international research centres in the field of electronic music.

This season, she channels her creative prowess and versatility into performances at La Biennale di Venezia, BBC Proms, Lucerne Festival, and an appearance with the New York Philharmonic. In 2024, Kopatchinskaja is honoring Schönberg’s 150th anniversary and performs his monumental violin concerto with the BBC and Vienna Symphony orchestras, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, to name just a few. As part of the anniversary celebration, Kopatchinskaja’s performance of Pierrot Lunaire at the Palau de la Música in 2025 will take place exactly 100 years to the day after Schönberg himself staged his melodrama at this venue. A trusted partner of the LPO for a decade, Kopatchinskaja will collaborate with the orchestra and Edward Gardner on an extensive U.S. tour culminating in a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York this autumn. Kopatchinskaja also reunites with Ensemble Resonanz for a new project, playground, to light-footedly deconstruct our familiar world, reassemble it back and lead the audience on an adventure of discovery through boundlessness. The programme features a new double concerto by Dai Fujikura alongside Claire Chase.

In 2023/24, Kopatchinskaja curated large-scale residencies at four prominent concert halls: the Southbank Centre in London, the Philharmonie Essen, the Wiener Konzerthaus (where she is the youngest honorary member of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft), and this year’s Golden Decade festival at the Dresden Philharmonic, which featured her performing six major violin works from the Classical Modern era over three consecutive evenings. In a new production directed by Barrie Kosky at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Songs and Fragments, Kopatchinskaja collaborated with soprano Anna Prohaska on György Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragments.

Highlights of the previous seasons included residencies at the London Barbican Centre, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Kopatchinskaja’s continued role as artistic partner of the Camerata Bern, and a daring musical experiment with Herbert Fritsch – a Neo-Dada opera production Vergeigt at Theater Basel. Following the international success of her previous collaboration with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra – Bye Bye Beethoven – Patricia Kopatchinskaja returned for the premiere performances of a new staged concert with the ensemble – Les Adieux – a project confronting the rapid deterioration of the environment and the loss of the natural world. Kopatchinskaja also performs as a vocal artist in Ligeti’s Mystères du macabre or Schönberg’s Pierrot lunaire where she takes on the role of Pierrot himself, as well as her project presenting Kurt Schwitters’ poem Ursonate as a film in the style of Dada.

Kopatchinskaja’s discography includes over 30 recordings, among them GRAMMY award-winning Death and the Maiden with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, a project which was also re-created as a semi-staged filmed performance with Camerata Bern. Recent CD releases season included Les Plaisirs Illuminés with Sol Gabetta and Camerata Bern, which was saluted with a BBC Music Magazine award and Le monde selon George Antheil with Joonas Ahonen (both on Alpha Classics). A revival of the project Maria Mater Meretrix with Anna Prohaska presenting the image of women throughout the centuries in a musical mosaic was also released on CD last season, as well as a new recording with Fazil Say which marks the comeback of their duo and has been awarded Editor’s Choice by Gramophone. This season has also seen the release of the album Take 3 with clarinettist Reto Bieri and pianist Polina Leschenko – a testament to the enduring partnership of these three artists, celebrating their shared musical journey and musical origins.