Anastasia Sofina

Young award-winning violist Anastasia Sofina was born in Moscow. She received her Master of Performance degree with Distinction at the Royal College of Music (London), where she was studying with Jonathan Barritt, as Leverhulme Scholar supported by a Stanley Picker Award and as a Soirée d'Or Scholar supported by a Lucy Ann Jones Award. She began violin studies in age of 4 with T.A.Solovieva in the preparatory division of the M. Balakirev's School of Arts and entered The Central Musical School at P.I.Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory in 1998, where her principal teachers were M.I.Sitkovskaya and E.A.Kochergina. Anastasia was studying with I.I. Boguslavsky at the A.G.Schnittke Moscow State Institute of Music and Y.A. Tkanov at Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Anastasia was a grant holder of the Mstislav Rostropovich Foundation for two years (2009-2011) and received the Annual Award of the Moscow Government for the most talented students of educational institutions under the jurisdiction of the Moscow City’s Department of Culture for 5 years consecutively (2009-2013). Currently she is doing Artist Diploma course at Royal College of Music. She has participated in masterclasses with such musicians as P. Zukerman, J.Bashmet, M. Rysanov, N. Imai, M. Kugel, I.-J. van der Werff, L. A. Tomter, G. Causse, H. Rohde, S. Rowland-Jones, M. Outram, S. Kamasa, G. Causse, O. Stanchev, J. Stumm, J. Dinerstein, S. Zhen and some more. Anastasia is a regular performer at various concerts. The list of venues she has played at includes Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Victoria and Albert Museum, St-Martin-in-the-Fields and St. Mary Abbots in London, Rachmaninov and Small Halls of Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Prokofiev’s Hall of Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture, Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre and State A.Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Anastasia has also performed in Greece, Serbia, Spain, Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Byelorussia, Poland, Belgium, France, Norway. She has played with such orchestras as Chamber Orchestra “The Seasons”, Slovak Sinfonietta Zilina State Chamber Orchestra, Norwegian Youth Chamber Music Festival Orchestra and Camerata Viesgo of the Encounter with such conductors as Peter Csaba, Wouter Lenaerts, Vladislav Bulakhov. She is the winner of the following international contests: 1st International Competition “Musical Art” (Russia, 2014, 1st prize), 5th International Music Festival and Competition (Greece, 2012, 1st prize), 16th International Competition of Youth Musicians “Petar Konjovic”(Serbia, 2011, 1st Prize), The 1st International Festival and Contest “The Night in Madrid” (Spain, 2011, 1st Prize), 14th Bohdan Warchal’s International Competition in Playing the Bow String Instruments “Talents for Europe” (Slovakia, 2010, the Competition’s Main Prize, 1st Prize in viola category, Prize for the best performance of the 20th century work and Musica Arvenzis Prize), 4th International Strings Competition in Nis City (Serbia, 2009, the Special Award [the equivalent of the Grand Prix] in the category of universities undergraduates and no age limit contestants), 2nd M. Elsky String Bowed Instruments International Competition in Minsk (Belorussia, 2007, 1st Prize in the middle age group) and a laureate of many other. She regularly participates in different Festivals as a solo and a chamber performer: Encuentro de Musica y Academia, 2015, Santander, Spain, National Arts Centre Orchestra Young Artists Program, 16th Edition, 2014, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Carl Flesch Academie 2013, Baden-Baden, Germany, 5th International Music Festival, 2012, Rhodos, Greece, Norwegian Youth Chamber Music Festival 2011, Stavanger, Norway, 60th the Pablo Casals Festival, 2010 Prades, France, 11th Musica Mundi Chamber Music Festival, 2009, Waterloo, Belgium – to name just a few. Anastasia is a keen chamber musician. Despite being young, she has performed with such musicians as Frans Helmerson, Sasha Rozhdestvensky, Gerard Causse, Alexandros Halapsis and Alexey Seleznev. She is a member of the prize-winning Rolton Trio and a member of the Clara String Quartet. Anastasia recently recorded “Palette. 20th Century” with the Pavlik Records (Slovakia, 2012). In 2010 Anastasia Sofina took part in video recording of one disk of the DVD-disk-set “A Collection of master classes of outstanding persons of Russian culture”, recorded at a Yuri Bashmet's masterclass. Composer Shandor Kallosh wrote two works for Anastasia. She played other his works on broadcasted programs of the State Russian Radio and at the TV-station Culture. In 2015 she successfully organized Clear Sound Evening, a concert in frameworks of which the young generation of Russian musicians was talking to public and playing. 13 musicians were performing, the concert was a part of the Festival dedicated to the 80th of the CMS. Anastasia plays a 2005 “Laubach” viola kindly partially sponsored by the firm's head Igor Laubach.