Vasily Popov


Vasily Popov

 

     Cellist Vasily Popov keeps an active concert schedule, performing as a soloist and chamber musician. He has appeared in some of the world’s finest concert halls such as Gasteig, Santory Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, Rachmaninov Hall as well as other important venues in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, England, Finland, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary and the USA.

     Vasily Popov is a prize winner of the International Chamber Music Competition "Accademia di Citta di Pinerolo" in Italy, the All-Russian Cello Competition and the Gartow Foundation Competition.

     His CDs are produced by Arte Nova Records (with the Soloists of St.-Petersburg), BMR (New Music), Excelsior, Intercount Music, Madacy Records, (Solo with St.-Petersburg Chamber Orchestra) and Melodia labels.

     Vasily was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1971 into a musical family. He started playing cello at the age of seven. He studied with Anatoly Nikitin and Walter Nothas and participated in master classes with Daniil Shafran, Natalia Gutman and Eliso Virsaladze. From 1995 to 1999 he was a member of the St.-Petersburg Philharmonic orchestra. In 2001 he completed an Artist Diploma at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Munich, Germany.

      Since 2005 he has started appearing as a conductor. He has conducted concerts with the Georgetown University Symphony and the Rock Creek Chamber Players. He has composed several original works, as well as arrangements for cello.

     Vasily Popov is Chair of the Chamber Music Program and Artistic Director of the Levine Chamber Orchestras at the Levine School of Music. In 2002 he founded the Brown Bag Music Series at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington DC. He is also one of the founders of the annual Levine Summer Chamber Music Festival in Washington DC.