Bella Davidovich
Piano
A testimonial to Bella Davidovich's extraordinary career is the list of the world's leading orchestras and conductors that have welcomed her over the years as soloist. Among the many prestigious concerts she has played were numerous return engagements with the New York Philharmonic (Andrew Davis, Herbert Blomstedt, Klaus Tenstedt); The Philadelphia Orci~estra (Riccardo Muti, Eugene Ormandy); Boston Symphony Orchestra (Andrew Davis, Leonard Slatkin); The Cleveland Orchestra (Charles Dutoit); Los Angeles Philharmonic (Eri Klas, Christoph Eschenbach); National Symphony Orchestra (Mstislav Rostropovich); San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (Edo de Waart); The Toronto Symphony (Andrew Davis, Aleksander Lazarev); Montreal Symphony Orchestra (Charles Dutoit; Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Neeme Jarvi); The Houston Symphony (Christoph Eschenbach); Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (Mariss Jansons, Yuri Temirkanov, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Michael Tilson Thomas). In Europe, she has also been partnered by Kirill Kondrashin, Kurt Masur, Kurt Sanderling and Rudolf Barshai, among many others.
International recital stages have welcomed Mme. Davidovich's solo concerts; and she has collaborated with the Borodin, Guarneri and Tokyo String Quartets. She is also a frequent guest artist at music festivals around the globe, most recently at those of La Roc d'Antherron, Schleswig-Holstein, Piano Festival Ruhr, Verbier and Sviatoslav Richter's December Evenings Festival. During the past two seasons, Bella Davidovich has been presented repeatedly in Belgium, England, Germany, Holland, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Brazil and Japan. She has also served on the juries of the Queen Elisabeth and Chopin International Piano Competitions.
In December, 1988 Bella Davidovich's native Russia reclaimed her in the spirit of perestroika: She became the first Soviet emigre musician to receive an official invitation from Goskoncert to return for concerts, which were all sold-out. An immediate reinvitation resulted in subsequent performances in Moscow and St. Petersburg with Dimitry Kitaenko, Yuri Temirkanov and Mariss Jansons, along with solo recitals.
Born into a family of musicians in Baku in the former Soviet Union, Bella Davidovich displayed rich musical talent by the age of three and began formal training at the age of six. She was 18 years old when she entered the Moscow Conservatory. As winner of the 1949 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, she earned the title "Deserving Artist of the Soviet Union" and emerged as one of the Soviet Union's preeminent artists; she was also one of the few women admitted to the inner circle of Russian cultural life, in part as a professor of the Moscow Conservatory. Since immigrating to the United States in 1978, Mme. Davidovich has established herself as one of her adopted country's premier keyboard artists, as well as one of the few women musicians to achieve such international prominence. Her October, 1979 Carnegie Hall debut before a standing room only audience heralded a new chapter in a career of major importance. Mme. Davidovich has been teaching at The Juilliard School since 1985.
Bella Davidovich recordings can be heard on the Philips Orfeo, Novalis, Delos, Gutingi and Supraphon labels.
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