Tatjana Masurenko


Tatjana Masurenko is a German violist of Russian descent.

Life

Masurenko hails from a Russian family of scientists and jazz musicians. Born in Dushanbe, Tadjikistan, she grew up in Saint Petersburg, where she also started her studies which she then continued in Germany with Kim Kashkashian and Nobuko Imai. Encounters with Boris Pergamenschikow, György Kurtág and Brigitte Fassbaender made a lasting impact on her artistic development. Tatjana Masurenko performs and records as a soloist with orchestras in concert halls all over Europe and Asia. She has played at Mozart Week Salzburg, Leipzig Bach Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Musiktage Mondsee, "Spannungen" Heimbach, Marlboro, West Cork and Istanbul. She has won the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, the Markneukirchen International Viola Competition and the Yuri Bashmet Competition. Her CD recordings "British Viola Concertos" and of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's viola concerto were awarded the German Record Critics’ Prize, the Diapason découverte and a Supersonic Award. She has performed chamber music together with Heinrich Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Roglit Ishay, Steven Isserlis, Menahem Pressler, Lars Vogt, Isabelle Faust, Christian Tetzlaff, the Vogler Quartet as well as Carolin Widmann, Jörg Widmann and Jana Bouškova.
Since 2010, Masurenko has also been performing classical folklore in various programmes with ensembles such as the Volga Virtuoso Quartet and KOTTOS from Copenhague.
Since 2018, she has intensively played the viola d’amore, developing her repertoire in the baroque, classic and modern styles for this instrument.
Masurenko has devoted herself to historically informed performance, particularly to the 19th century and the romantic repertoire. Inspired by Jesper Christensen’s ideas, she works with pianist Gilad Katznelson, also using historical sound documents, on questions concerning the interpretation of this music, the results of which were published on the CD "Just a motion on the air" in 2017.
Masurenko is the artistic director of the Iznik International Viola Camp in Turkey and the chamber music series "Viola plus" at the University of Music and Theater Leipzig. In 2008, she initiated an annual masterclass for viola in Leipzig, which she also directs. Masurenko has been professor of viola at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theater in Leipzig since 2003 and, in the same position at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne at Sion, Switzerland since 2019. Many of her students built successful careers and are internationally active as soloists, professors, solo violists in large orchestras and as chamber musicians. Her teaching method is based on the St Petersburg tradition of the 19th and early 20th centuries and merges with the new ideas and perceptions of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially regarding the interpretation of the baroque and classical periods.
She plays a viola by Paolo Antonio Testore, made in Milan in 1756, and an instrument specially built for her by Jürgen Manthey, a luthier developing new acoustic and tonal designs. She also plays a viola d’amore by Charles Jacquot, Paris 1849. She uses different bows for different periods of music.

Premieres

Tatjana Masurenko has premiered several works of contemporary music; the composers she works with include Moritz von Gagern, Dimitri Terzakis, Wolfgang Rihm, Spiros Mouchagier and Luca Lombardi.