Yekaterina Chemberdzhi

Life and career

The daughter of Vladimir Posner and Valentina Chemberdzhi and granddaughter of the composers Zara Levina and Nikolai Chemberdzhi, Katia Chemberdzhi was born in Moscow and began her study of music at age 7. In 1978 she studied composition and piano at the Moscow Conservatory with Nikolai Korndorf and Yuri Kholopov.

After ending her studies, Chemberdzhi took a position from 1984 to 1990 teaching at the Moscow Gnessin State Musical College. In 1990 she moved to West Berlin. She has been active in international festivals as a pianist and as a composer. Her compositions were commissioned by such festivals as Berliner Festspiele, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Tage Neuer Musik Zürich, and performed and commissioned by such soloists and ensembles as The Hilliard Ensamble, Charoun Ensemble, Sibelius Quartet, Staats- und Domchor Berlin, Singakademie zu Berlin, Münchner Kammerorchester, Boris Pergamenschikow, Natalia Gutman, Eduard Brunner, Charles Neidich etc.

She has composed film music for several Russian and German films.

Works

Selected works include:

1990: Sonate for clarinet and piano

1991: Heidelberg Trio, for clarinet, violin and piano

1991: In memoriam, for storyteller, piano, horn, violin and cello after poems by Anna Akhmatova

1991: In Namen Amadeus, for viola, clarinet, piano and tape

1995: Day and night: Hommage à M. C. Escher, for solo piano

1996: Labyrinth in memoriam Oleg Kagan, for string orchestra (3 quartets) and solo cello

1998: Max and Moritz, chamber opera after William Busch

2000: String Quartet No. 2, after Rainer Maria Rilke

2003: Opposition, for ensemble

2003: Three Bow Dances, for cello and piano

2003: Ma´or, for solo clarinet

2006: Abschiedsgesänge, for four vocal soloists and chamber orchestra after poems of Rainer Maria Rilke and Apollonius Rhodius

2007: Rettet Pluto!, Kinderoper

2009: Die Fragen des Bartholomäus, for five solo singers, choir, organ and orchestra

Selected Recordings

Chamber Works