American-Russian violinist Maria Ioudenitch captured the attention of music lovers worldwide when she received first prizes in three international violin competitions – the Ysaÿe, Tibor Varga and Joseph Joachim – in 2021, as well as numerous special prizes at these competitions, including Joachim’s Chamber Music Award, the prize for Best Interpretation of the Commissioned Work and the Henle Urtext Prize. In 2023, she won the Opus Klassik award in the category “Chamber Music Recording of the Year” for her debut album, Songbird, on Warner Classics.
The innovative programming of the young violinist is reflected in the track list on Songbird. With her piano partner Kenny Broberg, she spans an arc from Franz Schubert and Fanny Mendelssohn to Nikolai Medtner and Amy Beach. In upcoming concerts, she performs the violin concertos of Mendelssohn, Shostakovich and Barber, Bach’s a-minor violin concerto and Vivaldi’s “Il Grosso Mogul”, while her recital program this season focuses on French music, including Ravel, Boulanger and Poulenc.
Highlights of Maria’s 23/24 season include concerts with Camerata Bern, where she will open the season with a play-direct program, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Dresden Philharmonic, the latter to include a six-city tour of the UK. She will also feature on the Marlboro Music Festival’s US-tour, having attended the festival under the artistic direction of Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss for the third time this summer. In September, she will participate in the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival directed by Elena Bashkirova, and in February, she returns to Carnegie Hall for a chamber music concert presented by the Kronberg Academy. This season, for the first time she will also perform recitals with her father, Stanislav Ioudenitch.
Recent engagements have taken her to the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Symphony Orchestra, as well as NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and the Kansas City and Utah symphonies. Her growing list of conductors includes names like Andrey Boreyko, Alpesh Chauhan, Holly Hyun Choe, Kevin John Edusei, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Andrew Manze, Ruth Reinhardt, Robin Ticciati, Jan Willem de Vriend and Hugh Wolff. Besides Marlboro, she has also been a regular participant at the Ravinia Festival Steans Institute and other festivals in the US and internationally.
Maria grew up in Kansas City and began playing violin with Gregory Sandomirsky at the age of three. She continued her studies with Ben Sayevich at the International Center for Music in Kansas City and Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi at the Curtis Institute of Music and completed her master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Miriam Fried. Last year, she was mentored by Sonia Simmenauer as part of her new initiative, zukunfts.music. Currently, she is in the Professional Studies program at the Kronberg Academy, working with Christian Tetzlaff. She is also a member of the emerging US-based chamber music collective, ensemble132.
AUGUST 2023
