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Mikhail Kopelman, Boris Kuschnir, Igor Sulyga
and Mikhail Milman all graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire in the
1970's, this institution's golden age, when the students regularly worked
with musicians and teachers such as David Oistrakh, Boris Belenky, Yuri
Yankelevich, Fyodor Druzhinin, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich
and Natalia Gutman. These strong musical influences have remained with the
members of the Kopelman Quartet, even though they pursued individual
careers for twenty-five years before founding the quartet in 2002.
Mikhail Kopelman, first violin, was the
renowned leader of the Borodin Quartet for twenty years, and was awarded
the Royal Philharmonic Society Award and the Concertgebouw Silver Medal of
Honour. Boris Kuschnir, second violin, is a distinguished teacher whose
pupils include Julian Rachlin and Nikolai Znaider. Igor Sulyga, viola,
played for twenty years with Vladimir Spivakov, in the Moscow Virtuosi
Chamber Orchestra and in his string quartet. As founding members of the
Moscow String Quartet, both Boris Kuschnir and Igor Sulyga worked with
Dmitri Shostakovich on his late quartets. Mikhail Milman, cello, was for
twenty years principal cellist of the Moscow Virtuosi and collaborated
frequently with the Borodin Quartet in concerts and recordings.
The common roots and background of the
musicians enabled the Kopelman Quartet quickly to grow to maturity, and
their Edinburgh Festival concert, just one year after their foundation,
received extraordinary reviews, referring to "every hallmark of
distinguished musicianship" and "great humanity in the finesse
of their playing".
Now established as significant chamber
ensemble, the quartet has played at many major international venues,
including the Musikverein, Vienna, and appears regularly at venues such as
the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and the Wigmore Hall, London. They have played with artists such as Elisabeth Leonskaja, Mischa
Maisky and Julian Rachlin.
Two recordings by the Kopelman Quartet were released
in 2006: on Nimbus Records, Prokofiev's 2nd string quartet
and Shostakovich's 7th and 3rd; and on Wigmore Live, Tchaikovsky's 3rd
string quartet and Schubert's string quartet D810, Death and the Maiden.
Further recordings are in preparation.
The Kopelman Quartet has given concerts in the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Cyprus, the United States, Canada and Russia; festivals in which they have played include the Edinburgh International Festival, the Valladolid Festival, the Zurich Festival and the Ravinia Festival in the United States.
Future engagements include concerts at the Konzerthaus, Berlin, at the Prague Spring Festival and at the Colmar Festival, France, as well as performances at other venues in Europe, including the Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw and the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and concerts in Canada and the United States of America.
Boris Kuschnir plays the violin by Antonio Stradivari "La Rouse Boughton", 1703, by courtesy of the Austrian National Bank.
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General Management
Note to promoters: please do not use the
above biography for publicity or programme purposes; contact Pro
Artist for the most recent version.
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The Kopelmen Quartet currently have two
recordings for sale, click here for
details
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