Ivan Karizna & Vassilis Varvaresos
Biographie Ivan Karizna & Vassilis Varvaresos
Ivan Karizna
was born into a family of musicians in 1992 and started playing the cello at the age of five. He had his first lessons with Vladimir Perlin when he was seven. Between 2009 and 2014 he studied with Jerôme Pernoo at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. His studies, which he completed with distinction, were followed by two postgraduate years.
Ivan Karizna won third prize at the 14th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011 and first prize at the Società Umanitaria International Competition in Milan in 2015 and at the Luis Sigall Competition in Chile 2016. In 2017 he won fifth prize and the audience award at the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition. In the same year he won the Young Concert Artist European Auditions. He has already performed with numerous renowned orchestras, including the Moscow Virtuosi, the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, and the Slovenian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Ivan Karizna has also taken part in festivals such as the Yuri Bashmet International Music Festival and the Festival International de Colmar. His first recording was released on the Soupir label in 2016.
In 2012 Ivan Karizna took part in Chamber Music Connects the World, where he played with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Christian Tetzlaff. In the years 2017 and 2019 he participated in the Kronberg Academy Festival. 2018 he took part in the Kronberg Academy Cello Masterclasses, where he was awarded the Boris Pergamenschikow Stipendium. Since October 2016 he has been studying at Kronberg Academy with Frans Helmerson. These studies are funded by the Virtuoso Scholarship. Since October 2020 Ivan Karizna is a fellow of Kronberg Academy.
Vassilis Varvaresos
Greek pianist Vassilis Varvaresos is considered amongst the most promising pianists of his generation. Born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1983, Varvaresos started studying music at the age of five, and received a scholarship to the Conservatory of Nothern Greece. He continued his studies at the Conservatory with Milena Mollova. He won First Prize in the 1995 Petar Konjovic International Competition in Belgrade, the 1996 Pan-Hellenic Young Artist Competition in Athens, and was chosen as one of 11 young musicians from around the world to perform in Monte Carlo in a special “Little Mozarts” concert organized by Italy’s RAI TV. Varvaresos holds a bachelor of music degree and a master of music degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. His paper on Claude Debussy, which won the Scholastic Distinction Award from the The Juiliard School, was published in Greece by Kodikas Publications. March 2012 marked Varvaresos’ Carnegie Hall recital debut, to both audience and critical acclaim. Immediately following his debut, he was asked to play at the White House for President Barrack Obama.
