Dina Ugorskaja was born in Leningrad and grew up in a family of musicians. Her father, whom she predeceased in 2019, is the notable pianist Anatol Ugorski. Maja Elik, her mother, was a musicologist originally from Prague. Her parents had first met in 1967, working on the Soviet premier of Schoenberg'sPierrot Lunaire. Maja Elik, who was working for a music publisher, had been engaged to produce a Russian text for the work's German language "Sprechgesang". Ugorskaja's first piano teacher was her father. She made her public debut when she was seven, performing at the Leningrad Philharmonia Hall in 1980. Between 1980 and 1990 she attended the :ru:Средний специальный музыкальный колледж|specialist music academy of the Leningrad Conservatory, studying piano and composition. Here her piano teachers were Maria Mekler and her father, while her composition studies were undertaken with the man who was in charge of the piano department, :ru:Иршаи, Евгений Маркович|Evgenij Irschai. Alongside her studies at the academy, she also took singing lessons, with a focus on early music. She was still only 14 when she appeared as a soloist in her first orchestral concert, performing Beethoven's4th Piano Concerto in her home city. Just one year later, in 1989, Ugorskaja made her public debut as a composer with the first performance of her string quartet at the Leningrad Philharmonia Hall. The Perestroika years in the Soviet Union were accompanied by an increase in lawlessness and antisemitism. Dina Ugorskaja found herself on the receiving end of increasingly savage racist threats from supporters of Pamyat, a "patriotic"nationalist organisation. Dina Ugorskaja was barely 16 when Anatol Ugorski hastily relocated his family to East Berlin, where they arrived without even having taken time to get their identity papers in order. 1989/90 was a great change in the "German Democratic Republic", and the unfolding political developments in [Berlin">Die Wende">great change in the "German Democratic Republic", and the unfolding political developments in [Berlin appeared to hold out the prospect of an international career for Anatol Ugorski. As matters turned out, there would also be very significant professional opportunities for his daughter, who immediately submitted a successful application for admission to the city's Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler". Here she studied between 1990 and 1992: she was taught by Annerose Schmidt and Galina Iwanzowa. She subsequently moved on to the DetmoldMusic Academy where she studied under Galina Iwanzowa, and also as a :de:Meisterklasse |"master student" with Nerine Barrett and in 2001 passed her post-graduate level :de:Konzertexamen|concert exams degree. Ugorskaja retained her close links with Detmold where :de:Lehrbeauftragter|she taught piano from 2002 till 2007 and held an associate professorship. Having relocated to Munich in 2007/08, in October 2016 she accepted an invitation to take up a post as professor for piano and harpsichord at the Ludwig van Beethoven Institute of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Slightly more than three years later, on 27 November 2019, friends at the Beethoven Institute were attending a memorial event for their former colleague. Dina Ugorskaja died of cancer at her home in Munich on Tuesday 17 September 2019, after a period of illness. She was 46. She was survived by her husband, her daughter and her father.
Career highlights
Dina Ugorskaja gave concerts in Germany, Russia, France, Austria and Ukraine. She played at the Leipzig Gewandhausconcert hall and at the Schwetzingen Festival. She also performed at a large number of other festivals, including the "Hitzacker Days of Music". She teamed up with her father to issue a recording of concertos for two pianos by Bach, Mozart's Concerto No. 10 in E-flat major and the Shostakovich's :de:Concertino |Concertino for two pianos op.94. Further recordings followed, including one of the Beethoven First Piano Concerto with the Pforzheim-based South-west German Chamber Orchestra conducted, as in the case of her earlier two-piano concerto recordings with her father, by :ru:Чарнецкий, Владислав|Vladislav Czarnecki.
