Nina Kotova

Nina Kotova was accepted by the cello faculty into an adult class of the Moscow Conservatory at the age of seven, while studying at the Central Music School Pre-Conservatory. Nina gave her first performance as a soloist with an orchestra at the age of 11 and at 15 won First Prize at the Prague International Competition. At 19, after graduating in Moscow, Nina left the Soviet Union and continued studying in Germany and the United States. In 1996 Nina Kotova made her Debut in the West at the prestigious Wigmore Hall in London. Since then, Nina Kotova made her Barbican Centre and Carnegie Hall debuts and appeared in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Town Hall in New York, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, Orchid Hall and Osaka Symphony Hall in Japan, Wolf Trap and she has performed on the Red Square in Moscow, for the Imperial family of Japan, and at Buckingham Palace. Ms. Kotova has performed as soloist with symphony orchestras across the globe including the St. Louis, Dallas, Prague Radio, Russian State Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Verdi Orchestra of Milan, China Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, Czech Philharmonic, Russian National State Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC, Budapest Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Gulbenkian Symphony and the Royal Opera House orchestras. Nina has toured the United States, South America and Asia, including a solo performance for the Imperial Family of Japan, an appearance on the MTV Music Awards at the MET and a special performance with Sting at the Royal Opera House in London. Nina Kotova has recently appeared at the Verbier, Las Canarias and Tuscan Sun festivals, collaborating with artists such as Nikolaj Znaider, Sir James Galway, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lang Lang, Teodor Currentzis, Stephane Deneve, Nicola Luisotti, Libor Pesek. Thomas Vasary, Hélène Grimaud, Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Bobby McFerrin, Ivry Gitlis, Nobuko Imai, Julian Rachlin, Justus Frantz, Claus Peter Flor, Long Yu, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, and Antonio Pappano in both chamber music and concerto performances. Nina Kotova signed a recording contract with Philips Classics in 1996 and released her debut album in 1999. The CD was an instant success, remaining on the Billboard charts for several weeks. Elle magazine (September, 1999) named Nina Kotova one of the 25 persons to watch in the next century, and she has been the subject of features in Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Reader's Digest, the Wall Street Journal, Classic FM and on television on the Charlie Rose Show, Hard Talk with Tim Sebastian, and Breakfast with the Arts. Other recordings include a CD release of her own Cello Concerto recorded with the Philharmonia of Russia conducted by Constantine Orbelian (Delos, 2002), her chart topping, self-titled debut album (Philips Classics, 1999), a recent recording of the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton (Sony Classics, 2006) and inclusion on the compilatio