Biography
“The best and most perfect violinist I have ever heard.” — Yehudi Menuhin
Vadim Repin was born in Novosibirsk in 1971. He began playing the violin at the age of five and made his stage debut six months later. His mentor was the renowned teacher Zakhar Bron. At eleven, he won the gold medal at the Wieniawski International Competition and made his debut in Moscow and Leningrad. At fourteen, he toured Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, and Helsinki, and the following year, he debuted at New York’s Carnegie Hall. In 1989, he achieved international recognition by becoming the youngest winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, where he became a jury member twenty years later.
Vadim Repin performs in the world’s most prestigious concert halls. His chamber music partners have included Martha Argerich, Cecilia Bartoli, Yuri Bashmet, Mikhail Pletnev, Nikolai Lugansky, Evgeny Kissin, Misha Maisky, and Lang Lang. He has appeared with leading orchestras under the direction of conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yuri Bashmet, Semyon Bychkov, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, James Conlon, Alexander Lazarev, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Spivakov, Yuri Temirkanov, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Myungwhun Chung, Riccardo Chailly, Vladimir Jurowski, Neeme Järvi, and Paavo Järvi.
He is the founder and artistic director of the Trans-Siberian Art Festival, launched in Novosibirsk in 2014, which has become one of the most important international festivals. Since 2016, the Festival has expanded to other Russian cities (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Samara) as well as to Israel, the United States, Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Japan, and South Korea.
Its program includes classical music, ballet, documentary films, jazz, folk, crossover, visual arts, and educational projects for young people. Vadim Repin has premiered works by Sofia Gubaidulina, James MacMillan, Benjamin Yusupov, Lera Auerbach, Ilya Demutskiy, Mikhail Pletnev, Kuzma Bodrov, Anatoly Korolev, and others.
He is a regular guest at festivals in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, London, Salzburg, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Gstaad, Rheingau, Verbier, Dubrovnik, Menton, and Cortona. His discography includes more than thirty albums, several of which have received awards such as the Echo Award, Diapason d’Or, Prix Caecilia, and the Edison Award. Vadim Repin is a recipient of the prestigious French “Victoire d’Honneur,” awarded for outstanding achievements in the arts. He is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
He plays a 1664 violin by Nicolò Amati.