Valentina Igoshina (born 4 November 1978 in Bryansk, Bryansk Oblast) is a Russian classical pianist. She has won several international piano competitions.
Biography
Valentina Igoshina began studying piano with her mother, and first took lessons at home at the age of four. At the age of twelve she began attending the Moscow Central School of Music for gifted students and became a pupil of Sergei Dorensky and Larissa Dedova at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Igoshina has also served as a teacher of piano at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Currently she is a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and at the Conservatoire Maurice Ravel in Paris. She has lived in France for the past two decades, and travels extensively for concerts and recitals.
Professional accomplishments
In 1993, at age 14, she won first prize at the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Bydgoszcz, Poland. In 1997, at age 18, she won first prize and a special award at the famed Rachmaninov International Piano Competition in Moscow. In 2000, she was given an honorable mention at the XIV International Chopin Piano Competition.
Igoshina has also competed in four other worldwide piano competitions: Second place at the Atlanta International Piano Competition (2002), Georgia
First place at the Concorso Pianistico Internazionale "Premio Giuliano Pecar" (2002), Italy Laureate at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, (2003) Second place at the José Iturbi International Piano Competition (2006), Valencia, Spain
Igoshina appears on the list of great women pianists as compiled at forte-piano-pianissimo.com.
Festival and major orchestral appearances
Igoshina has been invited to play with many notable orchestras, among them: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, Markus Stenz conducting BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Aberdeen, Alexander Titov conducting Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, United Kingdom, Sir Mark Elder conducting Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Australia, Markus Stenz conducting Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona ì Nacional de Catalunya, Josep Caballé Domenech conducting Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago in Chile, Jan Latham-Koenig conducting London Philharmonic, Carl Davis conducting Macao Orchestra in Macao, China, Lü Jia conducting Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Antoni Wit conducting Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo, Josè Maria Florêncio conducting Real Filharmonia de Galicia, Antoni Ros-Marba conducting Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, Augustin Dumay conducting Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, Takao Ukigaya conducting Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michal Klauza conducting
Igoshina has appeared on multiple occasions with several of the foregoing orchestras. Additionally, she worked both in Russia and Italy with Alexander Vedernikov during his tenure at the Bolshoi Theatre. She has performed in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory. Igoshina has also appeared with orchestras in Kraków, Poland; Sacramento, California; Gdansk, Poland; St. Louis, Missouri (Robert Hart Baker conducting); Saint-Etienne, France; Tokyo, Japan; Moscow, St Petersburg, and Bryansk in Russia; Sofia, Bulgaria; Budapest, Hungary (Izaki Masahiro conducting); and many other venues. She has often served as a judge of piano competitions at venues throughout Europe and elsewhere.
She has also participated in numerous recitals and musical festivals; a few are listed as follows: