Katyusha Variations, composed by Aleksey Igudesman.
Irina Pak, violin
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Irina Pak lives for the stage. Both playing music and the exchange with the audience is her great passion, which, above, gives her the opportunity to express herself in the language she is most capable with: music. Already during her childhood, concert tours and competitions played an important role in her life, which the young violinist experienced with joy and realized it as her destiny.
Diversity and innovation looms large in Irina’s artistic self-conception. Thus, she plays baroque repertoire with the same dedication as works from the 20th century. Simultaneously, she is open-minded about cross-stylistic and unconventional concepts as well as rare repertoire, which, among others, can be seen in her programs with works by her patron, the violinist and composer Igor Frolov, the composer Paul Hertel, or in her collaboration with versatile artist Aleksey Igudesman, who recently dedicated his Katyusha-variations to Irina.
Irina was born in 1986 in Siberian Novosibirsk to Korean parents. Her mother and her sister Olga brought her to the violin and she began her education at the special school for music of the State Conservatory Novosibirsk at the age of 5. After first studies at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Saint Petersburg, Irina moved to Zurich to continue her studies at the Zurich University of the Arts, where she was taught by legendary Zakhar Bron and Ulrich Gröner among others, and where she earned both the concert and soloist diploma with honors. Furthermore, she got additional musical impulses in several international masterclasses. Since her first participation in a competition at the age of 9, Irina could succeed many times at both national and international level and is a winner of competitions such as the International Competition for Young Violinists in Honor of Karol Lipiński and Henryk Wieniawski.
As a soloist, Irina performed with orchestras such as the Philharmonics of Saint Petersburg and Novosibirsk, the chamber orchestra La Primavera, the Berliner Camerata, or the Kurpfälzischen Kammerorchester Mannheim. Her activities brought her to concert halls such as the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Wiener Musikverein, and to festivals such as Palermo Classica, Les Classiques de Villars, or Les Sommets du Classique in Crans-Montana. During her studies in Saint Petersburg, she discovered her love for chamber music and was one of the founders of the rewarded Trio Triangle. The trio’s former mentor Evgeny Sinaiski later became one of her chamber music partners. Besides, she regularly collaborates with artists such as Aleksey Igudesman, Roman Patkolo, Yulia Miloslavskaya, Gilad Karni, and her sister Olga. Since her studies, Irina is active as an orchestra violinist and thus has performed with the chamber orchestra of the Seiji Ozawa Academy and the orchestra of the Zurich Opera House. Furthermore she plays a first violin in the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich and deputizes the position of the first concertmaster of the KKO Mannheim since 2016.
Already during her education in Zurich, Irina started her pedagogical activities and enthusiastically teaches musically gifted children and young at the LGT Young Soloist Academy and, previously, at the Zakhar Bron School of Music. Also, she gives master classes for violin playing and both ensemble and chamber music at the Summer Music in the Upper Nagold Valley. She is artistically working with Johannes Schläfli within the scope of his teaching activities and as a council member of the foundation Stiftung Petersburg she, besides, is supporting young Russian musical talents.