Emmanuel Tjeknavorian & Anna Vinnitskaya

Respected by audiences and professionals alike as a versatile artistic personality, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian has shifted the focus of his musical work to conducting since the 2022/23 season. Most recently, he has conducted orchestras such as the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the philharmonie zuidnederland, the Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz. As part of his residency at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in summer 2022, he conducted the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Kammerakademie Potsdam.

The current season will see renewed collaborations with the Graz Philharmonic, the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra for a performance of Beethoven’s C major Mass with the Vienna Singakademie, among others. Tjeknavorian also makes his debuts with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra with concerts in the Vienna Konzerthaus and on tour in Germany and Switzerland, with the Spanish Orquesta Sinfónica de RTVE, the hr-Sinfonieorchester, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, the Gürzenich Orchester Köln, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien with a concert performance of Johann Strauss’ operetta “Die Fledermaus”. As a resident artist, Tjeknavorian has also appeared several times at the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Graz Musikverein, the hr-Sinfonieorchester and the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn.

Emmanuel Tjeknavorian’s career as a conductor follows on from his previous work as a violinist. Since his success at the International Sibelius Competition in 2015, Tjeknavorian has performed in the most internationally renowned halls and with the great musicians of our time. He will also be heard as a violinist during his current residencies. He also tours Europe with the Filarmonica della Scala under Riccardo Chailly, plays Mozart’s own Costa violin at the Salzburg Mozart Week and gives trio recitals with Anna Vinnitskaya and Daniel Müller-Schott. For several years, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian has played on a violin by Antonio Stradivari (Cremona 1698), a generous loan from a benefactor of the Beare’s International Violin Society.

As an OPUS Klassik prize winner, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian has already released several albums: After a highly acclaimed solo album as well as recordings of the Brahms and Sibelius violin concertos, his debut album as a conductor was released in 2021, on which he leads the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”, among other works. Emmanuel Tjeknavorian is also a passionate music communicator and as such has hosted his own monthly radio show “Der Klassik-Tjek” on Radio Klassik Stephansdom since 2017, in which he talks to well-known personalities from a wide range of fields about their shared passion for classical music.

Emmanuel Tjeknavorian was born in Vienna in 1995 into a family of musicians and began his musical education at the age of five. Simultaneously with his violin studies, he was introduced to conducting from his earliest youth by his father, the composer and conductor Loris Tjeknavorian.

The 1st prize at the Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels in 2007 marked Anna Vinnitskaya’s international breakthrough. Her performances with top orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Boston Symphony Orchestra have been met with great enthusiasm worldwide. The breathtaking technical precision and tonal nuances of her piano playing allow her maximum creative power in her interpretations. Anna Vinnitskaya’s piano playing is characterised by unconditionality, energy and poetic depth.

Anna Vinnitskaya will perform Rachmaninov’s piano concertos in the 2025/2026 season with the Orchestre de Paris under Klaus Mäkelä, the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Eva Ollikainen, among others. With the Bern Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor Krzysztof Urbański, she will even perform all of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos on two consecutive evenings. Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand is on the programme for the celebratory concert at the Vienna Musikverein to mark the 125th anniversary of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which Anna Vinnitskaya will perform together with chief conductor Petr Popelka, followed by a tour to the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Müpa Budapest, the Essen Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus Freiburg. Anna Vinnitskaya will perform recitals this season in Bordeaux, Tokyo, Paris, Luxembourg, Madrid and Hamburg, among others. Together with Evgeni Koroliov and Ljupka Hadzi- Georgieva, she will perform Bach’s works for one to three pianos and orchestra with the Menuhin Academy Soloists in Vienna and Basel and with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra at the Cologne Philharmonie. Last season, Anna Vinnitskaya was the portrait artist of the Philharmonie Essen. In addition to a series of chamber concerts and recitals, she performed there with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under the direction of Paavo Järvi, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Elim Chan, as well as with Herbert Grönemeyer and the Bochum Symphony Orchestra.

Anna Vinnitskaya’s CD recordings for Alpha/Outhere have been honoured with numerous awards such as the Diapason d’Or and the Gramophone Editor’s Choice, including a celebrated Chopin album, a Rachmaninov album with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Krzysztof Urbański and the album ‘Piano Dances’ released in 2024. She combines her own version of Ravel’s highly virtuosic piece ‘La Valse’ and his ‘Valses nobles et sentimentales’ with the ‘Puppet Dances’ by Shostakovich and the ‘Circus Dances’ by Jörg Widmann. Her recording of Bach’s piano concertos together with Evgeni Koroliov, Ljupka Hadzi Georgieva and the Kammerakademie Potsdam is particularly close to her heart.

Anna Vinnitskaya was born in Novorossiysk, Russia. She studied with Sergei Ossipienko in Rostov and then with Evgeni Koroliov at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, where she has been a professor since 2009. Anna Vinnitskaya is increasingly a juror at renowned piano competitions, such as the Concours Reine Elisabeth in May 2025 and the ARD International Music Competition in September 2025.