Violаs

Lyubov Lazareva

In the orchestra since 2022

Lyubov Lazareva is a graduate of Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music (the class of Elena Ozol) and the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (the class of Associate Professor Roman Balashov).She took part in master classes by Yuri Bashmet, Wilfried Strehle, Hartmut Rohde, Beatrice Muthelet, and Enrico Carraro.

In 2023, she was awarded first prize of the VI All-Russian Competition for the Symphony Orchestra Artists. She is the Laureate of the IV Rubinstein International Competition of Chamber Ensembles (as a member of the Rebellion Quartet, III prize), the IX Yuri Bashmet International Viola Masters Competition (I Prize, 2023).

She worked in the orchestras of the Verbier Festival (2016–2017) and the Tsinandali Festival (2019). She took part in the Prityazhenie Festival, the Winter International Art Festival in Sochi, etc.

From 2019 to 2021, she was concertmaster and soloist of the Moscow Conservatory Chamber Orchestra conducted by Felix Korobov. She has collaborated with such ensembles as the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pavel Kogan, the Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra, PerSimfAns, Questa Musica, the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Gnessin Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, and the All-Russian Yuri Bashmet Youth Symphony Orchestra. She is the member of the string Rebellion Quartet (Ivan Naborshchikov, Inna Yakusheva – violins, Ilya Mikhailov – cello).

She has toured in Germany, Italy, France, China, Singapore, South Korea, and Georgia.

HOW DID YOU START WORKING AT MUSICAETERNA?

For the first time I heard musicAeterna when they performed Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7. As a conservatory student, I made it to an open rehearsal. I was struck by the magnetism of the conductor and how sensitively the musicians react to his remarks. A few years later, I was invited to work in the viola group in a joint project of the conservatory and the orchestra: we played Desyatnikov's The Rite of Winter and Strauss's Metamorphosen. This experience had a great impact on me, and my heart soared with the hope of collaborating with musicAeterna further. Soon I had the opportunity to participate in the work of the orchestra again as a guest artist, and in 2022 I applied for an audition and was offered a permanent position. Previously, I collaborated with various chamber and symphony orchestras as a concertmaster and soloist. I am happy that the musicAeterna Orchestra has become my first official permanent job.

WHAT MAKES MUSICAETERNA DIFFER FROM OTHER ENSEMBLES?

The amount of work in musicAeterna is huge. Standard orchestral rehearsals last only 3-4 days, at musicAeterna we rehearse for at least two weeks – this is a tremendously deep immersion in the material. As a result, a much more qualitative study of details is obtained. Teodor Currentzis is an amazing conductor, he is attentive to every musician and is ready to share his ideas and suggest directions for growth.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE YOUR INSTRUMENT?

As a child, I tried my hand at many occupations: I played tennis and took oriental dance classes. My parents limited me in no way. One day my grandmother suggested that I study music, I chose the class of violin – I was struck by some violin concert on TV. In the process of studying, the violin transformed into the viola. Now I understand that this instrument, its deep timbre and colorful sound – softer than that of a violin – perfectly suits my temperament.

WHICH OF THE MUSICIANS INFLUENCED YOU?

When I switched from violin to viola, I began to listen to Yuri Bashmet's recordings. I love quartet music making, which I owe to my wonderful teachers – Elena Ivanovna Ozol and Vladimir Vladimirovich Balshin. The viola is largely not a solo instrument, but a chamber, quartet instrument, it has the function of the middle voice in the score. My gold standard chamber ensemble is the Borodin State Quartet.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE MUSIC PIECES?

I can endlessly listen to the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. Currently, I have Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon on my playlist on repeat. In my free time, I like to read foreign classics – Mann, Sartre, London. Now, for example, I'm reading The Magic Mountain. I used to read Russian literature voraciously. I've read all of Dostoevsky and a lot of Leo Tolstoy. I used to make lists of what I definitely have to read, but now I choose a book following a momentary desire.