Arkadi Zenzipér Germany ← Back to list
Arkadi Zenzipér (born 1958 in Leningrad) is a Russian pianist, piano professor, and music organizer. Since 1992, he has been a professor at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden.
Zenzipér was born in 1958 in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). He completed his studies and subsequent postgraduate studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under Grigori Lipmanovich Sokolov and Nathan Yefimovich Perelman. While still a student, at the age of nineteen, he held a teaching position at the conservatory.
In 1985, Zenzipér moved to his relatives in the GDR. This allowed him to escape the threat of repression in the USSR. This was followed by a turning point in his career as a concert pianist. Through the mediation of Amadeus Webersinke, Zenzipér received a teaching position at the Dresden Academy of Music in 1986. He has been professor of piano there since 1992, succeeding Webersinke in 1993. Since 2017, he has held a teaching position at the Brescia Music Academy in Italy.
Zenzipér's career received a significant boost in 1987 when he joined the trio "Ex Aque" with Antje Weithaas and Michael Sanderling. During this time, he played duos with Michael Erxleben and Heike and Torsten Jannicke, among others. In October 1987, he gave his first concert in West Germany.
Zenzipér has performed as a soloist with the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Kraków Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Staatskapelle St. Petersburg. He has played at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Munich Piano Summer, and at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam).
Several of Zenzipér's students have won prizes in international competitions. Regular concert tours and masterclasses take him to Russia, China, Poland, Argentina, Italy, Malta, Spain, the Czech Republic, Israel, Japan, South Korea, the USA, and Switzerland, among others.
Zenzipér is also a jury member of various international competitions. He is committed to Russian-German cultural understanding and, together with Andreas Graf von Bernstorff, initiated the establishment of the Gartow Foundation to promote young musicians in St. Petersburg.
In 2001, Zenzipér was the founder and until 2004 festival director of the Dreiklang Festival in the border triangle of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Zenzipér is the founder and artistic director of the Schubertiad in Schnackenburg. The series began with a concert in Gartow Castle in 1989. Zenzipér was reminded by the nature there of the summers of his childhood, which he had spent with his grandfather in the Russian-Finnish border region. In the former administrative building of nearby Schnackenburg he found a suitable setting for summer concerts. He brought his Förster grand piano into the building and initially played for himself. With the window open he found numerous listeners, including the then town director Ortmanns. Zenzipér then began to organize free concerts together with chamber music partners.
After reading a book about Franz Schubert and his music lessons in Vienna, Zenzipér came up with the idea of starting Schubertiades in Schnackenburg. He founded a support association for this purpose.
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