Valery Sokolov

Born in 1986, Valeriy Sokolov is one of the leading violinists to come out of Ukraine in the past twenty years. He left his native country age 13 to study with Natalia Boyarskaya at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England and continued his studies with Felix Andrievsky, Mark Lubotsky, Ana Chumachenko, Gidon Kremer and Boris Kushnir. He was the first prize winner of the 2005 George Enescu International Violin Competition in Bucharest, Romania. Working regularly with the world’s leading orchestras, he has enjoyed collaborations with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Cleveland Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Rotterdam Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, NAC Ottawa, Orchestre National de France and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. He works frequently with world known conductors. He has appeared in many major European festivals including Verbier and Lockenhaus. He regularly performs in the major concert halls around the world with highlights including regular Sunday Morning series appearances in Theatre du Chatelet as well as at the Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Mariinsky Theatre, Prinzregenten Theatre in Munich and Musikverein in Vienna. Valeriy Sokolov regularly performs with Evgeny Izotov in recital as well as with his own piano trio alongside the Ukrainian cellist Alexei Shadrin. Exclusively signed with Erato records (formerly EMI Classics) Valeriy Sokolov has developed a strong and varied catalogue of recordings, releasing Enescu’s Sonata No. 3 for them in 2009. His first concerto DVD was of the Sibelius Violin Concerto under Vladimir Ashkenazy and with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Bruno Monsaingeon’s film “un violon dans l’âme / Natural Born Fiddler”, a record of Valeriy’s recital in Toulouse in 2004, received much praise from the critics and continues to be frequently broadcast on ARTE TV. In 2010 Valeriy recorded violin concertos of Bartok and Tchaikovsky under the direction of David Zinman and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. Valeriy has recently given performances with the St Petersburg Philharmonic, NDR Hamburg Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra amongst others. He has also recently completed a successful tour of a chamber music project with Lisa Batiashvili and Gautier Capuçon throughout Europe. Valeriy’s 2016-17 season includes the violinst returning to Paris with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France , as well as performing with the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Hamburg at the new Laeizshalle. He has recently comissioned a violin concerto from Ukraine’s most significant composer Yevhen Stankovich and has become artistic director of a newly set-up chamber music festival on the lake of Konstanz in Germany.