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Success Stories

The Foundation's young musicians tell how their path began: the first concert, the first instrument, the first great stage.

The scholarship programme is one of the Foundation's key strands: scholars gain concert experience, appear in the Foundation's programmes and develop their careers under the personal attention of the artistic director Vladimir Spivakov. Many of them play today with the world's leading orchestras.

Gathered below are the musicians' own accounts and fragments of their biographies — as they are published in the Foundation's register of scholars.

~1000
scholars over the years
1995
the first scholars
30+
specialities
Voices of the Foundation's musicians

Nine stories

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Yulianna Avdeeva
Piano

Yulianna Avdeeva

“I was eight years old when I was invited to the Vladimir Spivakov Charitable Foundation and asked to perform at a concert at the Boris Pasternak House Museum in Peredelkino. The poet's memorial day was marked at the end of May. At that time I did not yet know that he is one of the greatest classics of Russian literature of the twentieth century. Names such as Andrei Voznesensky and Andrei Dementyev, who read their poems there, meant little to me then…”

A sensational victory at the 16th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2010) carried Yulianna Avdeeva into a starry international orbit. Tremendous success accompanied her post-competition appearances in Warsaw, New York, London, Rome, Tokyo and Beijing, St Petersburg and Moscow. Since then she has appeared with the world's greatest orchestras, among them the New York Philharmonic (conductor Alan Gilbert) and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo (conductor Charles Dutoit).

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Dmitry Shishkin
Piano

Dmitry Shishkin

“Twelve years ago I, a little boy from the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, learnt about the V. Spivakov International Charitable Foundation. The Foundation invited me to Moscow and gave me the astonishing chance to perform in the Armoury Chamber of the Kremlin! How lucky I was! To this day I remember the impression that unforgettable concert made on me!!! …”

Dmitry Shishkin was born in 1992. He has played the piano since the age of two. At four he entered the special children's school of the arts of the P. I. Tchaikovsky South Ural State Institute of Arts. At nine he began studying at the Moscow Secondary Special Music School (class of Mikhail Khokhlov). He graduated from the P. I. Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory (class of Eliso Virsaladze).

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Anastasia Kobekina
Cello

Anastasia Kobekina

“For twenty-five years you have been doing Good, helping talented children to find their future and to make their way in their profession. Once you took me under your wing too. It was a happy time! Only thanks to your support was I able to come closer to my dream. I always remember you with tenderness and endless gratitude, and I treasure our friendship greatly.”

Anastasia Kobekina was born in Yekaterinburg into a family of musicians. She began playing the cello at the age of four. In 2012 she graduated with honours from the Central Music School of the P. I. Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory. She then studied at the Kronberg Academy (class of Frans Helmerson) and at the Berlin University of the Arts (class of Jens Peter Maintz).

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Maxim Rysanov
Viola, conductor

Maxim Rysanov

“The Vladimir Spivakov Foundation is a unique phenomenon of our time! This applies to everything: the way all the Foundation's staff treat the scholars, the purchase of instruments, the thousands of concerts a year all over Russia and abroad. I remember with endless gratitude the time when I travelled on tour with the Foundation together with the other young musicians. It was an invaluable experience. And I have no idea how I would have developed, or which road I would have taken, had I not given so many concerts with the Foundation back then. …”

Maxim Rysanov was born in Ukraine and now lives in London. He graduated from the Central Music School of the P. I. Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory (class of Maria Sitkovskaya) and from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London (viola class of John Glickman and conducting class of Alan Hazeldine).

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Ivan Karizna
Cello

Ivan Karizna

“It is a great joy for all young musicians and for listeners who love music and art that the V. Spivakov Foundation EXISTS! Enormous thanks personally to Vladimir Teodorovich, to the Foundation's executive director Ekaterina Romanovna Shirman, to its artistic director Pyotr Ilyich Gulko, and also to the sponsors and patrons for the creation and the life of the Foundation!”

2010, Eurovision Young Musicians competition (Vienna), finalist · 2008, 5th International Delphic Games, Second Prize · 2007, 2nd M. Yelsky International Competition for Performers on String Instruments (Minsk), First Prize

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Dmitry Borodaev
Guitar, composer

Dmitry Borodaev

“For many years the Vladimir Spivakov International Charitable Foundation has been doing good. I felt that good myself while still a pupil of the Kharkiv Special Music School — with the scholarship granted by the Foundation my parents bought me the first piano of my life; there was no instrument at home, and until then I had gone to practise at the neighbours', who had one.”

A laureate of international competitions, a Russian guitarist and composer and a public figure, a member of the Union of Moscow Composers and president of the Moscow International Association of Guitar Art. He studied classical guitar in Moscow with Professor Natalia Ivanova-Kramskaya, Honoured Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, at the college of the Moscow Conservatory and at the State Specialised Institute of the Arts.

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Andrei Cholokyan
Oboe

Andrei Cholokyan

“Pokrovka Street is the old address of the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation. It was at that address that I first came to the Foundation, after taking part in the ‘Nutcracker’ competition, at the age of ten, and my whole artistic formation passed under the Maestro's name, with the people who lead this Foundation, who are devoted to the service of art, of creativity, of children. It was the Foundation that taught me to feel the love, the holiness and the unattainability of beauty.”

Andrei Cholokyan was born in 1992 into the family of the Moscow musicians Eduard and Tatyana Cholokyan. He has studied music since the age of three. He studied the oboe at the Gnessin Moscow Secondary Special Music School (class of I. F. Pushechnikov, Honoured Art Worker of the Russian Federation, professor and academician). A laureate of all-Russian and international competitions and festivals.

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Lev Bakirov
Piano

Lev Bakirov

“I first came to know the Vladimir Spivakov International Charitable Foundation when I was six years old. At that time I was still keen on drawing and chess, and my music lessons had only just begun. I first met Ekaterina Romanovna Shirman and Pyotr Ilyich Gulko at the House of Music on Kosmodamianskaya Embankment in Moscow, when my parents and I brought from Perm my drawings, which the Foundation had selected for the ‘Moscow Meets Friends’ festival.”

Lev Bakirov was born on 1 October 2010 in Perm. He began his studies at the age of five at the Perm Boys' Choir Capella, and in 2020 he moved with his parents to Moscow; he currently studies at the Gnessin Moscow Secondary Special Music School, in the class of Boris Berezovsky, Honoured Artist of Russia.

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Ekaterina Sklyarova
Cello

Ekaterina Sklyarova

“I came to a concert of the ‘Moscow Meets Friends’ festival, organised by the V. Spivakov International Charitable Foundation, for the first time in December 2020. It was the first year of the pandemic; the concert was held behind closed doors, without an audience. Performing in such a format was very unusual. But the main thing for me was the very chance to appear on stage.”

Ekaterina Sklyarova was born on 01.02.2006 in the city of Voronezh into a family of musicians. She has studied music since the age of four. From 2010 she studied the cello at the Voronezh Secondary Music School (college) in the class of Tatyana Ivanovna Tumaeva, Honoured Worker of Culture of the Voronezh Region. At present she studies in the class of Natalya Evgenyevna Bogoyavlenskaya, Honoured Worker of Culture of the Voronezh Region. She also studies voice.

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Tell us your story

If you are a scholar or a participant in the Foundation's concert programmes and would like your story to appear on this page, write to us — we will get in touch and discuss the details.

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Do you dream of becoming a scholar?

The path begins with the festival

A scholar is a regular participant in the Foundation's concert programmes. Find out how to travel that path.

How to become a scholar