Yulianna Avdeeva gained international recognition when she won First Prize in the Chopin Competition in 2010. She has since embarked on a world-class career and her artistic integrity is rapidly ensuring her a place amongst the most distinctive artists of her generation. Described by the Financial Times as an artist who is "able to let the music breathe", Yulianna Avdeeva is always uncompromisingly and profoundly devoted purely to the music itself. Conjuring an impeccable combination of clarity, energy and elegance, Avdeeva wins audiences with her compelling honesty, wit and musical judgement.
After making her Australian debut in a recital at Sydney Opera House in 2018, Yulianna Avdeeva ventures on a dynamic 2018/19 season which includes invitations from the Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestras. Further highlights include debuts at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Boulez Saal in Berlin, Avdeeva’s return to St Petersburg Philharmonic, and new orchestra collaborations with the City of Birmingham, and Trondheim symphony orchestras.
A regular performer throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Avdeeva made her debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and toured Japan together with the Bamberger Symphoniker last season. Most recently, she worked with New Japan Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin on tours of Japan, and performed the Macao Orchestra season opening concert. Elsewhere, recent orchestral highlights have included Avdeeva’s debut at the Salzburg Festival and Alte Oper Frankfurt, her return to the Lucerne Festival, a tour of Germany with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, engagements with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio and Stavanger symphony orchestras, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Orchestre National de Lyon.
An avid and committed chamber musician, she has worked with the Philharmonia Quartet and toured throughout Europe with violinist Julia Fischer appearing at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Tonhalle Zurich, Prinzregententheater Munich, Smetana Hall in Prague, Teatro Principal de Alicante and Sociedad Filarmonica de Bilbao amongst others. In 2018, Yulianna Avdeeva appears with Kremerata Baltica in Latvia, Denmark and Hungary and performs with the Schumann Quartet in Lucerne. In recital, she has performed at London’s International Piano Series and the Wigmore Hall, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and International House of Music, Rheingau Musik Festival, Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, Liederhalle Stuttgart and Philharmonie Essen.
Yulianna Avdeeva's Chopin performances have drawn particular praise, marking her out as one of the composer's foremost interpreters who brings out the strength as well as the refinement of his music. Her long association with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute has won her a huge following in Poland. She is a regular with the Warsaw Philharmonic and National Polish Radio Symphony orchestras with whom she has forged strong relationships. In 2018/19, Avdeeva tours with Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra to Milan and Prague. Avdeeva’s third solo recording on Mirare, featuring works by Bach, has just been released. She also released a recording of the Chopin concertos with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen. In 2015, Deutsche Grammophon featured Yulianna Avdeeva in a solo recording as part of a milestone collection dedicated to the brightest winners of the Chopin Competition between 1927 and 2010.
Avdeeva began her piano studies at the age of five with Elena Ivanova at Moscow’s Gnessin Special School of Music and later studied with Konstantin Scherbakov and with Vladimir Tropp. At the International Piano Academy Lake Como, she was taught among others by William Grant Naboré, Dmitri Bashkirov and Fou Ts’ong. In addition to her Chopin prize, she has won several other prizes including the Bremen Piano Contest in 2003, the Concours de Genève 2006 and the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Poland.