Arts Global

Elizaveta Shnayder was born in 1978 in St Petersburg (then Leningrad). She graduated from the Musical High School and became a pupil of Mikhail Gantvarg at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, where she received a Soloist's Diploma with Distinction. She began her solo career under the conductor Saulus Sondeckis, and in 1995 joined the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado.

In 1998 Ms Shnayder was awarded the Diploma of the Competition of the Russian Federation, and moved to Switzerland for further study with Tibor Varga at the Tibor Varga Superior Conservatory in Sion, Canton Valais. During that time, she attended performance courses led by Victor Pikaïzen, Francesco de Angelis, Sherry Kloss, Ulf Hoelscher, Zahar Bron and Vladimir Spivakov.

In 2001 she was a Laureate of the Judith Justice Foundation and participated in numerous festivals in Europe and the USA, among them the Jascha Heifetz Festival, the Tibor Varga Festival (Budapest) and the Paganini Festival (Nice) as soloist in Paganini's Violin Concerto No.1. In the same year, she won 2nd prize in the 35th annual Tibor Varga Competition, together with the Paganini Prize for the best interpretation of the Caprice No.4 and the Brahms Prize for the best performance of the Sonata No.1 for Violin and Piano. In 2002, she played Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in the Zurich Tonhalle.

The Tibor Varga Superior Conservatory in Sion not only awarded Elizaveta Shnayder a Concert Diploma with Distinction, but also, in 2003, a Soloist's Diploma with Distinction and the commendation of the jury. In 2002 and 2003, she was awarded the music students' prize of the Swiss Migros Cooperative Society, "Kulturprozent".

Ms Shnayer went on to win two fellowships in Germany: one from the German Academic Exchange Service, and another from the Berlin University of the Arts as part of the German national program for the encouragement of young artists. These awards enabled her to pursue yet a third Soloist's Diploma at the Hanns Eisler Conservatory in Berlin, where she studied under Stephan Picard.

Her concerts in 2005 included a tour of nine cities in Germany with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn under Heribert Beissel, with which she played Mozart's Violin Concerto No.3; Dvořák's Violin Concerto in the Great Hall of the Philharmonia, St Petersburg, with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra; participation in the Keshet Eilon master course in Israel including a soloist performonce with the Tel Aviv Chamber Orchestra under Shlomo Mintz; and chamber concerts at the Rhodes (Greece) International Festival and the Bach Festival in Lutry, Canton Vaud. That year she was also a Laureate of the Kiefer-Hablitzel Foundation in Berne. In 2006, she appeared at the International Lake of Constance Festival in St Gallen, Switzerland, where she gave the world premiere of a new piece, Concerto Galante "Harfe und Spielmann" for violin, harp, and strings, by the Swiss Composer Gion Antoni Derungs. As a finalist in the Montreal International Music Competition, she played the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. She performed Mozart's Violin Concerto No.3 in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in Switzerland and Slovakia, on tour with the Slovak Sinfonietta under Swiss conductor Urs Schneider. Multiple chamber music concerts in Switzerland, France, and Germany rounded out her schedule in 2006 and 2007. In November 2007, she played the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Brandenburg Symphony as her diploma concert for the Hanns Eisler Conservatory, Berlin.

At the International Lake of Constance Festival in 2008, Ms Shnayder had the unique opportunity to present the world premiere performance of a major Romantic violin concerto of the 19th century, composed by Heinrich von Herzogenberg. Dedicated in 1889 to Herzogenberg's fellow professor at the Berlin Conservatory, the famed violinist Joseph Joachim, the piece waited well over 100 years for its first public performance. Ms Shnayder performed the work with the Musikkollegium St Gallen under Mario Schwarz, and earned critical accolades for her "passion and fire"Leidenschaft und inneres Feuer" - St Galler Tagblatt) and for a warm, yet powerful sound and virtuosic sensitivity ("mit warmem und doch kräftigem Ton und virtuoser Einfühlsamkeit" - Schaffhauser Nachrichten).

An extraordinarily gifted young artist.
Wolfgang Sawallisch

Her playing is very impressive and I am convinced that she has a great artistic future ahead of her.
Marek Janowski