EKATERINA MECHETINA
(piano)

A brief but already rich in events artistic way of Ekaterina Mechetina strikes one not only by the swift impetuosity of her upward flight to the musical Olympus but also by gradual but invariably steadfast and consistent advance to the summits of musical mastery. And there is also one more noteworthy circumstance: although her career can boast of not few successful performances at international contests, it is not to her competition conquests that she owes her extremely wide and well-deserved popularity. This happens very seldom nowadays. The secret is not only in the great, gradually maturing talent of the young artist but also in her keen interest in various musical fields, her ability in no time to learn new complicated music. This eventually is broad-mindedness and desire not to confine herself to a limited range of standard contest repertoire.

Nevertheless there is nothing extraordinary in the biography of Ekaterina Mechetina: vice versa everything in her biography looks logical and called forth by her life. She was born in a family of musicians and very early it became clear that she had inherited the inclinations and gifts of her parents. Her talent became evident when she was a girl and she appropriately became a pupil of the Central school of music of the Moscow State Conservatory - the best music school of the world for talented children where dozens of world-known musicians made their first steps in music. Finishing school (professor T. L. Koloss), she also appropriately became a student of Moscow Conservatory (professor V. P. Ovtchinnikov). For the postgraduate studies, the famous Sergey Dorensky took her to his class. The students of this teacher have won over one hundred prizes on competitions of the three continents - a result worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. The prize of Ekaterina Mechetina on the Cincinnatti piano competition has become the hundredth...

The first landmark on this way was the Youth Piano competition and the Mozart Prize, which she won at the age of 10. The material expression of this victory was a piano. Six years later a more serious test awaited her - one of the most difficult competitions, the International Busoni piano competition in Bolzano. At that time an Italian critic wrote these rhapsodical words: "Young Ekaterina already now is on the peak of world pianism". This of course was an exaggeration: she still had a lot to learn then… Luckily her tutor as well as she well realized that. But the immunity to the star disease was and is still part of her character; it has enabled her to perfect her mastery on the way to a genuinely artistic altitude. She gave lots of concerts, toured many countries, and took part in various international contests. She became the prizewinner in Vercelli (2002), Pinerolo (2003) and finally in Cincinnati (2004) where she made a triumph. By that time her concert activities have passed the prodigy child stage and gained very much in scope. The virtuosity of the young pianist drew the attention of the music public above all because her virtuosity did not infringe her musicality - it is well known that in our age of high technologies many can play fast and accurate. But only few, the elite can render sincere emotions and deep ideas of the composers. Katia belongs to this elite.

Actually, her conquests at competitions did less determine her rise than her meetings with some of the great musicians of our time. In December 2002, when Russia celebrated the 70-year jubilee of the outstanding composer Rodion Shchedrin, one of the concerts of the festival devoted to his music was on the verge of failure since the German pianist invited by the composer could not come to Moscow. Sergey Dorensky managed to convince the composer - always demanding absolute perfection from the performers of his music - to entrust his music to a student of his class. It is true that Ekaterina Mechetina had already played a lot of Shchedrin's music, and the fact that she learnt with lightning speed his new most difficult opuses won the heart of the exacting author. The concert was a great success and Shchedrin was so much conquered by the pianist that since that he entrusts Mechetina the performance of his new piano works. One of them was the Piano Concerto Nr. 6 whose premiere she performed in Amsterdam in the legendary Concertgebouw. Another destined meeting was with the outstanding musician and very wise artist Vladimir Spivakov. One can say that Mechetina became one of the most often invited guest soloists of both the wonderful orchestras headed by the maestro - National Symphony of Russia and Virtuosi of Moscow. And finally another incomparable artist - Mstislav Rostropovich - became a guardian angel for Katia Mechetina. It was Rostropovich who, having done credit to her talent a few years ago, invited her to perform in his concerts on Taiwan and then allotted her a scholarship in his foundation, which gave her a chance to take classes in France. "These meetings - Katia admits - changed my attitude to the profession and each concert of this kind was for me an unforgettable event".

Today Ekaterina Mechetina is a mature artist of a big experience and her last CD "Rachmaninov" has been just recorded for label FUGA LIBERA. Her repertoire enriches itself with new compositions, her renderings become more refined and well-thought out. She leads an intensive concert activity giving about 80 concerts every year, her concert schedule becoming more and more intense. She cooperates with first-rate orchestras and widely known conductors including Vladimir Spivakov, Mstislav Rostropovich, Maxim Vengerov, in 2009/2010 season she will perform in Moscow under direction of Barry Douglas. Her scenic partners include Rodion Shchedrin, Vladimir Spivakov, Alexei Utkin, Alexander Knyazev, Boris Andrianov, Nikita Borisoglebsky, Sergey Antonov and many others. Ekaterina plays on the most prestigious stages of the world among which the best stages of Moscow and other cities of Russia as well as Schauspielhaus in Berlin, Gaveau in Paris, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Great Hall of the Milan Conservatory. Even prior to the competition in Cincinnati she played in Brazil, had a debut in USA with orchestra in Boston. "The Russian highest-class pianist Ekaterina Mechetina strikes the public by her debut in USA" - read the headline of the influential newspaper Boston Globe. Her achievements were marked with one of the most prestigious awards of Russia-Youth Prize "Triumph" and - in 2007 - with an order of Catherine The Great which was awarded to her for "extraordinary achievements and personal contribution into the culture and arts of Russia". But the main thing is that the artist understands that there is no limit to perfection and purposefully continues her movement upwards.

Ekaterina Mechetina has signed an exclusive contract with the Moscow State Philharmonic Society Artists management (2007) which represents her over Russia.