Elena Denisova was born in Moscow and, as a young child, was
fascinated by Jascha Heifetz’s expressive playing and versatility of tone; she
loved listening to his records over and over in her childhood home. Her parents
supported this highly sensitive talent, and she recorded her first LP,
Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No.2, while still a pupil at the music school of
the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Highly influential among her teachers were two of David Oistrach’s most
renowned students, Valery Klimov and later Oleg Kagan at the Moscow Tchaikovsky
Conservatory, which ranks as the foremost institution for Russia’s most
talented musicians. She graduated with distinction. She has won many
violin competitions and initially was active as a soloist and chamber musician
in the former USSR â€" for example as soloist of the Moscow State Philharmonic
and first violinist of the Moscow National Quartet. In 1990 she extended
her concert performances to Western Europe, and found a second home in Austria.
Elena Denisova has been an Austrian citizen since 1992. In Austria she founded the
Ã-sterreichische Gustav Mahler Vereinigung, the Gustav Mahler Ensemble and the
Classic Etcetera Musikvereinigung. She is also artistic director of the
Carinthian-based Woerthersee Classics Festival, which she founded in 2002 and
which has already gained a strong international reputation.
Born in Moscow, Alexei Kornienko
began music lessons at the age of five, studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory
in Moscow (piano class Zak) and in Charkow (conducting class Jordania), and was
prize-winner at the International Rachmaninoff Piano Competition in Moscow.
Since his move to Austria in 1990 he has made his name as a respected
competition juror as well as a teacher at the Kärtner Landeskonservatorium
(Carinthian State Conservatory). He is co-founder of the Gustav Mahler Ensemble
and a member of the Bösendorfer Artistic Club. Kornienko divides his career between the piano and the
conductor’s podium. Together with his wife, acclaimed violinist Elena Denisova,
he is also active in the rediscovery of forgotten treasures of
Classical-Romantic period chamber music: Musik um 1900, their CD "Vienna
1900" (Gramola Vienna) of works by Robert Fuchs, Pavel Singer and
Alexander von Zemlinsky, brought them international success. Kornienko stands out as an
extraordinarily dynamic interpreter of the works of Beethoven and Brahms, but
also of the Modern, and his ability to master highly challenging works ensures
his position as a much sought-after conductor for premieres of complex scores.
He has worked with countless internationally renowned orchestras, such as the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony
Orchestra, the George Ernescu Philharmonic Orchestra and as a permanent guest
conductor of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, and he has garnered enthusiastic
praise from critics and public alike. Since 2012 he is the chief conductor of
the International Danube Philharmony. Kornienko has been artistic director of the Wörthersee Classics Festival
since its foundation in 2000, and strives each year to create a program of the
highest quality.
(No. 231)
