���غ���

Anna Vinnitskaya is a Russian pianist known for her flawless technique, powerful musicality, and mature sense of phrasing. Also a respected educator, she is a piano professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. She was born in 1983 in Novorossiysk, Russia, to a musical family. Both of her parents were pianists, and she started receiving piano lessons from her mother when she was six years old. Vinnitskaya made her debut with an orchestra when she was eight, performed her first recital at the age of nine, and in 1995 she won the International Junoshenki Competition. That same year she moved with her family to Rostov-on-Don, where she became a student of Sergei Ossipenko at the Rachmaninov Conservatory. After completing her studies in 2001, she enrolled at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg under Ralf Nattkemper and Evgeni Koroliov, and continued winning top prizes in piano competitions through the 2000s. In 2009, she became a piano professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, and she released her debut recording Rachmaninov, Gubaidulina, Medtner, Prokofiev: Piano Sonatas on the Naïve label. The album received enthusiastic reviews, and it won the Diapason d´Or award in the “Discoveries” category. She received similar feedback from critics regarding her subsequent releases Prokofiev, Ravel: Piano Concertos, which won an ECHO Klassik award, and Ravel, which also earned a Diapason d´Or award and the Editor’s Choice designation from Gramophone Magazine. Vinnitskaya’s 2019 release Bach: Concertos for Pianos was nominated for an International Classical Music Award in the Baroque Instrumental category. That same year, she made debuts with the Sächsische Staatskapelle and the Berlin Philharmonic, and served as artist in residence at the Dresden Philharmonic. She toured with Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic in 2021, and she released Chopin: 4 Ballades; 4 Impromptus. She performed in a piano trio with violinist Emmanuel Tjeknavorian and cellist Daniel Müller-Schot in 2022, and in 2023 made her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, performed a cycle of Rachmaninov piano concertos with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, and served as artist in residence at the Kammerakademie Potsdam. Vinnitskaya released Piano Dances: Ravel, Shostakovich, Widmann on the Alpha label in 2024. ~ RJ Lambert

Since its founding in 2001, the Kammerakademie Potsdam has become a leading chamber orchestra in the Berlin region and one of the most versatile of such ensembles in all of Germany, with a repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music. It is one of the few small orchestras to perform on both historical and modern instruments, depending on the needs of the music it is playing, and it has sometimes taken the rare step of mixing the two.

The Kammerakademie Potsdam was founded when two ensembles, Ensemble Oriol Berlin and Potsdam's own Persius Ensemble, merged at the turn of the century. The Ensemble Oriol, in existence since 1987, brought a diverse repertoire, made still broader by the addition of the Persius Ensemble's brass instruments. Each of the combined ensemble's music directors -- Peter Rundel, Sergio Azzolini, Andrea Marcon, Michael Sanderling, and Antonello Manacorda (chief conductor since 2010) -- has emphasized a different repertory, and the orchestra has sometimes performed without a conductor as well. It did not take the group long to attract a recording contract; in 2005, the orchestra backed Sergio Azzolini on an album of bassoon concertos by Villa-Lobos, Hindemith, Jolivet, and Gubaidulina.

The Kammerakademie Potsdam, supported by the city of Potsdam, performs in the city's Nikolaisaal concert hall and in the Friedenskirche (Peace Church). It organizes the Potsdam Winter Opera concert series in addition to presenting orchestral concerts, and it is also a frequent guest at the large Philharmonie concert hall in Berlin. Guest soloists who have worked with the orchestra have come from the top ranks of both the mainstream (Julia Fischer, Sol Gabetta, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Steven Isserlis, and many more) and early music (Konrad Junghänel, Bernhard Forck, and Erich Höbarth) worlds. The Kammerakademie Potsdam was signed to Sony Classical, releasing an album of rediscovered Bach wind concertos in 2009; in 2017, it released a Mendelssohn symphony pairing under Manacorda; that grew into a complete cycle of Mendelssohn symphonies, followed by releases covering Mozart's last three symphonies and, in 2022, Beethoven's First, Second, and Seventh symphonies, performed with a small group featuring modern strings but period brass and winds. Since 2010 the Kammerakademie Potsdam has taken an active role in music education in its home state of Brandenburg, performing numerous concerts and interactive events for children and adolescents. ~ James Manheim