Oleh Kurochkin - Principal 2nd Violin

Violinist Oleh Kurochkin was born in 1994 in Yevpatoriya on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea into a family of musicians. He received his first violin lessons at the age of five. At the age of eleven, he was admitted to the M.Lysenko Kyiv Central Music School, in the class of Prof. Jaroslava Rivnjak. From 2012 to 2016, he studied at the National Academy of Music of Ukraine, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. This was followed by studies at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Düsseldorf with Prof. Ida Bieler. In 2020, he will graduate from the Folkwang University of the Arts with a Master’s degree in Solo Professional Performance under Prof. Boris Garlitsky. He is currently completing his concert exam at the Folkwang UdK.
Oleh Kurochkin has won prizes at numerous national and international competitions. In 2010 he won the 1st prize at the International Chamber Music Competition “Ignacy Jan Paderewski” with his piano trio as well as the 1st prize at the violin competition “The Art of the XXI Century” as a soloist. In 2012 he won the 1st prize at the Euhen-Stankovich International Violin Competition.

His solo activities have taken him to numerous concert halls in Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Moldavia, Russia, Bulgaria and Hungary.
and Hungary. He has also appeared as a soloist with the symphony and chamber orchestras of chamber orchestras of Düsseldorf, Bonn, Berlin, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Krim, Zaporizhzhya and Odesa.
Since January 2023, Oleh has been first principal with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. As first guest concertmaster, he performs with, among others.
Copenhagen Philharmonic, Sofia Philharmonic, Basler Kammerorchester ITEMPI, Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, Zermatt Festival, Aurora Festival Stockholm, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Rheingau Festival, Philharmonie der Nations. Between 2019-2020 Oleh was academist in 1st violins of the Staatskapelle Berlin and from 2021-2022 member of the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

He received further important musical impulses from encounters with with the greatest conductors of our time: Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Kirill Petrenko, Zubin Petrenko, Zubin Mehta, Andris Nelsons, Herbert Blomstedt, Christian Thielemann,
John Williams, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Gustavo Dudamel.
Oleh is an internationally sought-after chamber musician and works regularly with, among others. with Renaud Capuçon, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Valery Sokolov, Claudio Bohorquez, Martin Stadtfeld, Alexander Hülshoff, Pedro Halffter, Alexander Zemtsov, Tomáš
Jamník and “Scharoun Ensemble Berlin”.
Due to his successes, he was initially awarded a scholarship by the from 2009 to 2012, received a scholarship from the Ukrainian government, from 2015 to 2019 a “Germany Scholarship” from 2015 to 2019 and the DAAD Graduation Award in 2017.
Since 2018, he has been a scholarship holder of the Villa Musica Foundation, which gave him the historical violin “ex-Schubert” Pietro Guarneri (Mantua, 1702) for three years.
provided. Since 2019, Oleh has been supported by the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Neuss am Rhein, and since 2020 by the “Vere Music Fund.”
In March 2022, Oleh became the initiator and co-founder of the project UAmusic.DE, the platform for helping Ukrainian musicians who had to leave their homeland due toRussian war of aggression.
Since 2021, Oleh Kurochkin has been playing the Michele Decon Foundation, the Michele Deconet “ex Castelberg” (Venice, 1775).