Bella Davidovich
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Bella Davidovich (born July 16, 1928) is a Jewish-born, Soviet and American pianist.
Davidovich was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, into a family of musicians and began studying piano when she was six. Three years later, she was the soloist for a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1939, she moved to Moscow to continue her musical education. At the age of 18 she entered the Moscow Conservatory where she studied with Konstantin Igumnov and Yakov Flier. In 1949, she shared the first prize of the fourth International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition with Halina Czerny-Stefańska. This launched her on a very successful career in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in which she appeared with every major Russian conductor and performed as a soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic for 28 consecutive seasons. She also taught at the Moscow Conservatory for sixteen years. Bella Davidovich was one of the Soviet Union's pre-eminent artists as well as one of the few women to be admitted to the inner circle of Russian cultural life. She was married to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky. Their son, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, is a violinist and conductor.
With the spirit of perestroika, she became the first Soviet emigré musician to receive an official invitation from the Soviet agency Goskoncert to perform in her native country. She played concertos, a recital with her son Dmitry Sitkovetsky playing the violin, and chamber music with the Borodin String Quartet to sold-out halls.
[edit] Career in the USA
In 1978 she emigrated to the U.S. where she became a naturalized citizen. In October 1979 she had her American debut at Carnegie Hall before a standing-room only audience. She has taught at the famous Juilliard School of Music in New York City since 1982.
Throughout her extraordinary career, Bella Davidovich has performed with the world's leading conductors, such as Semyon Bychkov, Sergiu Comissiona, James Conlon, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Neeme Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Vakhtang Jordania, Kyrill Kondrashin, Alexander Lazarev, Raymond Leppard, Neville Marriner, Riccardo Muti, Eugene Ormandy, David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Kurt Sanderling, Maxim Shostakovich, Gerard Schwarz, Leonard Slatkin, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Yuri Temirkanov, Klaus Tennstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas, Edo de Waart and David Zinman.
Past highlights of her manifold activities include concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Eri Klas, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart under Vladimir Fedoseyev and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, chamber concerts with her son Dmitry Sitkovetsky and the cellist David Geringas, a tour to the Far East with the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Yuri Temirkanov, a tour of Spain with the Ulster Orchestra under Dmitry Sitkovetsky, a tour with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Alexander Lazarev, numerous recitals in London, in Bochum at the Piano Festival Ruhr, at the Rheingau Musik Festival and the Attergauer Musiksommer and, most recently, her highly acclaimed performances at the Salzburg Festspielhaus. In November 1999 she had a tremendous success with recitals at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and in Lisbon: "Bella Davidovich is the seductive teller of a story full of entanglements and secrets."
At the invitation of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, where she has been a frequent and well-loved guest, she celebrated her 70th birthday in July 1998 by way of two magnificent concert performances together with her son, friends and students. She subsequently performed together with Gidon Kremer, Frans Helmerson, Lars Vogt and many other instrumentalists at Isabelle van Keulen's chamber music festival in Delft where she has been a regular guest. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of her winning First Prize at the first Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw back in 1949, the Piano Festival Ruhr invited her for an orchestral concert and a recital in 1999. In Rotterdam, she took over a recital from Maria Joao Pires at short notice with great success. Future engagements include recitals at the Piano Festival Ruhr, in Stettin, Madrid, Mallorca and Lugano, chamber music at the Rheingau Musik Festival as well as orchestral concerts in Amsterdam, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under Hubert Soudant.
As a highly regarded pedagogue, she now concentrates her teaching activities at the Juilliard School in New York. She is also a regular jury member at many of the world's major international piano competitions. In 1995 she served on the jury of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels, the Chopin Competition in Warsaw and the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey, Switzerland. Bella Davidovich has recorded for Philips, Orfeo and Novalis.
