Ekaterina Mechetina is nowadays one of the most talented and brightest pianists in the world. She performs with the best orchestras of Russia and Europe. She has had a chance to work with great musicians of today. After Rodion Schedrin heard her playing for the first time, he entrusted her with the world premiere of his Piano Concerto N 6. The audience is overwhelmed not only with her virtuosic performance skills as a pianist, but with her astonishing charm.
E.Mechetina was born into a family of musicians in Moscow. Her father is a cello player, and her mother is a piano teacher. She took up music when she was four. She graduated from the world famous Moscow Conservatory Gnessins school of music (class of T.L. Koloss), then the Moscow conservatory (class of assoc.prof. V.P. Ovchinnikova), and in 2004 she finished her postgraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory under the world famous Prof. Sergey Leonidovich Dorenko’s tuition.
Katya started performing when she was 5. She had her first solo concert when she was aged 10 in the Gnessins school of music. And two years later she went on her concert tour to Japan to give 15 solo concerts with two different programmes within a month. And she continued these tours for 10 years successively. Since that time she visited more than 30 countries around the world on all continents, except Australia. Presently, Ekaterina Mechetina gives 70 concerts a year.
Ekaterina performs at the best stages of the world, including the Grand Hall, the Small Hall and Rakhmaninov Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Grand Hall and the Chamber Hall of the Moscow House of Music, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, The Bolshoi Theatre; Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Yamaha Hall, Casals Hall (Tokio), Konzerthaus (Berlin), Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Salle Gaveau (Paris), the Milan Conservatory Auditorium (Мilan), Sala Patricia Meireles (Rio de Janeiro), Alice Tully Hall (New York), etc.
The competition career of Mechetina was a success. When she was ten years old, she won Grand Prix at the Mozart Prize Competition in Verona and received Yamaha piano as the main prize. At the age of thirteen, she got the 2nd Prize at the I Chopin Youth Piano Competition in Moscow, and she was again awarded special prize “For the Charm and Artistry”.
Aged 16, Ekaterina Mechetina became the youngest prize-winner of the International Busoni Piano Completion in Bolzano, where she was awarded the prize for the best performance of a most difficult F.List's etudeWill of the Wisp. At those days the Italian press wrote that, “Young Ekaterina already now is on the peak of world pianism”. Afterwards new awards came: in Epinal (2ndprize, 1999), Viotti prize in Vercelli (2ndprize, 2002), in Pinerolo (1st prize absolute winner, 2003), Cincinnati at the International Piano Competition (1st prize and the Golden Medal, 2004).
Her career as a pianist was under a great influence by three outstanding musicians: the violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov, who frequently invites Mechetina to perform at his concerts (she performed with Virtuosi of Moscow, the National Philarmonic Orchestra of Russia and the National Symphony of Russia when it was under V.Spivakov’s direction), the cello player and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and the composer Rodion Schedrin. E.Mechetina played his new piano works in Moscow and Amsterdam. Mechetina says, “Thanks for these meetings, my attitude to the profession completely changed, and every concert of this kind is a special event that I will always keep in my memory”.
Her repertoire comprises more than forty five concertos for piano and orchestra, many of which were performed under the direction of V. Spivakov, M. Rostropovich, S. Sondeckis, Y. Simonov, P. Kogan, D. Sitkovetsky, A. Sladkovsky, A. Skulsky and many other outstanding conductors.
Ekaterina took part in large international festivals including the world famous S.Richter December Nights Festival in Moscow, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Crescendo festival in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Pskov, Tumen, Paris, Riga.
Since 2003 E. Mechetina has participated in the international Russian Muses to the World musical project .
The pianist has records with the radio and television in Russia, the USA, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Kuwait. In 2005 Mechetina had her CD, Rachmaninov recorded for the FUGA LIBERA as her first solo album.
Apart from solo performances, E. Mechetina plays with ensembles of different musical set-up. She is in constant cooperation with excellent young Russian artists, such as N. Borisoglebsky, S. Antonov, B. Andrianov, A. Ogrinchuk, etc.
She is the winner of Russian Muses to the World fund and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation “For promotion of the objective image of Russia in the global arena”. Since 2009 Ekaterina Mechetina has been a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory (Prof. A. A. Mndoyants’s assistant). She is a holder of the Russian President Award for the young artists in 2010. She is a member of the Council of the President of the Russian Federation. Since July 7, 2011 she has been a member of the Council by the President of the Russian Federation for Culture and Art.
Prize-winner of the youth prize Triumph;
Winner of the Russia’s President Prize for young artists;
Soloist of the Moscow State Academy Philarmonic.
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