Elvira Bekova
Elvira Bekova is the artistic director of Felcino Bianco, which runs summer schools and other courses for professional musicians, academy students and advanced/gifted amateur musicians. She is also a member of the Bekova Trio. Some of Elvira's music can be heard on www.myspace.com/elvirabekova
A short biography
Elvira Bekova has built a reputation as an outstanding chamber musician, distinguishing herself through the wide range of her repertoire and appearances in the major festivals and concert halls in the UK, continental Europe, USA, Canada, the Middle East and Australia. She is a member of The Bekova Trio which has won acclaim for both performances and their numerous recordings on the Chandos label. Born in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, Elvira began learning violin at the local music school. Her first teacher was an exiled Russian cellist, Roman Mazanov. She began performing in concerts, on radio and television, having made her concert debut at the age of 15 playing the Khachaturian violin concerto with the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra. After four years of studies with Professor Benjamin Hess (a pupil of the legendary K. Mostras), Elvira entered the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow where she was the first Kazakh instrumentalist to be accepted. Her principal teacher was the great Russian violinist, conductor and pedagogue, the late Igor Bezrodny, who upheld and developed the unique violin methods of his illustrious teacher A. Yampolsky. Bezrodny had heard Elvira performing the Paganini violin concerto while on his tour of Kazakhstan and immediately invited her to join his class in Moscow. After becoming a prize-winner in the Paganini Violin Competition in Genoa and in the Chamber Music Competition in Belgrade, Elvira commenced intensive touring throughout the USSR. Sha appeared as a recitalist and as a member of the Nakipbekova Sisters Trio (The Bekova Trio) as well as being in demand as a soloist performing concerti with the principal Russian symphony orchestras. Among the most memorable events of the time were her performances of the violin concerti of Brahms and Sibelius under the baton of Igor Bezrodny. She received the title "Honoured Artist of Kazakhstan".
From 1989 Elvira was based in Great Britain where she continued to expand her career internationally as a recitalist, chamber musician, teacher and recording artist, consolidating her reputation as one of the finest representatives of the Russian school of violin-playing. There have been many notable trio and recital performances since that first concert in the South Bank Concert Hall in London. In particular,the concerts performed at the Melbourne Chamber Music Festival, those in the Wigmore Hall, the West Cork Festival in Ireland and a warmly applauded series of concerts at a variety of venues in France, over recent years. Elvira and her sisters premiered the triple Concerto Grosso by the contemporary Russian composer Sergey Zhukov in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow and later recorded the piece with the Orchestra den Haag in the Netherlands. She returned to Moscow later to play the first performance of Zhukov's violin concerto, a piece that he dedicated to Elvira. Masterclasses have also been given in Britain, Melbourne, Brussels and Ankara.
In 2005 Elvira moved to live in Central Italy on the Tuscan/Umbrian border where the ideas for Music@ Felcino Bianco (MfB) were born. Since that time, Elvira has performed extensively in Italy, both as chamber musician and increasingly again, as soloist and recitalist. Her performances of the well-known Bach Chaconne (from the Partita No. 2) and the haunting Poeme by Chausson have been acclaimed, as well as the delightful Franck Sonata and the Prokofiev Sonata No. 2. After the 2006 MfB summer course The Trio were invited to perform at the prestigious Menton Festival in France where a packed house heard with delight the two great Piano Trios, No. 2 in E flat major by Schubert and that in A minor by Tchaikovsky, a prodigious evening.
Elvira's playing is an example of the classical style and the best traditions of the Russian violin school and the Moscow Conservatoire, with her refined bow technique and her quality of sound, once described by David Oistrakh as "unique".
More information
We include a Discography and Bibliography of the Bekova Trio, and critical acclaim for their work
