Valery Klimov

Valery Klimov (Valeri Alexandrovich Klimov) is a Russian violinist and teacher born (in Kiev) on October 16, 1931.  He is known for having won the very first International Tchaikovsky Violin Competition (in March, 1958), the best known violin competition in the world.  He was 26 years old.  That was the same competition at which Van Cliburn (the American piano player) won first prize in the piano division, subsequently becoming popular and famous.  That year, Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was the chairman.  Klimov’s first teacher was his father.  He later studied at the Odessa Conservatory and later still at the Moscow Conservatory with David Oistrakh.  As far as I was able to determine, Klimov did not perform outside Russia until 1967.  Quite possibly his first concert outside the Soviet Union was in London, England.  Although he has toured around the world, his career has mostly been spent in Russia.  He has been teaching at the Moscow Conservatory for a long time and has received many official awards.  Among his many pupils are Elena Denisova, Hisaya Sato, Alice Waten, Fiona Ziegler, Evgeny Grach, Rachel Schmidt, and Alena Tsoi.  Here is a YouTube video with Klimov playing the Khachaturian concerto.  Among other things, it gives you a chance to hear the excellent acoustics of the Sydney Opera House.  

Victor Tretyakov

Victor Tretyakov (Viktor Viktorovich Tretiakov) is a Russian violinist, teacher, and conductor born (in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia) on October 17, 1946.  He is known for an extraordinary technique.  Though Russia was his home base for the first fifty years of his career, he has performed with (almost) every major orchestra in the world and toured far and wide as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber ensemble musician.  He has been awarded every major prize and been given every honor Russia offers its artists.  Tretyakov began studying the violin at age 5 in Irkutsk (Siberia) with a teacher whom I could not trace (please see comments below).  At age 10 (1956), he entered the Central Music School in Moscow where he studied with Yury Yankelevich (pupil of Abram Yampolski and among whose students are Leonid Kogan, Vladimir Spivakov, Ilya Kaler, and Albert Markov.)  At age 19 (1966), during his first year at the Moscow Conservatory, he won first prize in the Tchaikovsky Competition.  In 1969, he was named soloist of the Moscow State Philharmonic.  He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory one year later (1970.)  He was 23 years old.  However, he continued to study with Yankelevich.  His first performance with the Berlin Philharmonic was on October 17, 1981.  He played the Brahms concerto on that occasion.  He was 35 years old.  In 1983, he became artistic director of the USSR State Chamber Orchestra which later became the Moscow Chamber Orchestra.  He gave that post up in 1991.  From 1986 to 1994, he served as President of the jury for the Tchaikovsky Competition.  He also taught at the Moscow Conservatory for many years but I do not have the dates.  In 1996, he moved to Germany to teach at the advanced school for music in Cologne.  He was 50 years old.  He has also held master classes all over the world. His most famous pupil is probably Roman Kim.   Here is a YouTube audio file in which he plays Paganini’s concerto in D.  With Yuri Bashmet (viola), Natalia Gutman (cello), and Vassily Lobanov (piano), he formed a piano quartet whose name I do not know.  Among other violins, he has played a 1772 Nicolo Gagliano violin and a gorgeous modern violin by Alexander Hazin.  His discography is not extensive (it fills ten CDs) but it covers all of the standard concertos and sonatas.  

Mayuko Kamio

Mayuko Kamio is a Japanese violinist born (in Toyonaka, Osaka) on June 12, 1986.  She has been fortunate to have played with well-known, established artists from an early age.  When she was barely out of her teens, one of the critics for the New York Times described her as being “distinguished by her warmly luxurious, buttery tone and long, seamless phrasing.”  In Japan, she has played in every major venue and appeared with practically every orchestra.  She has also appeared in every major city in Europe.  In the U.S., her activity has been more limited, but no less successful.  She has also been (in 2003) the subject of a documentary by Josh Aronson, the director of the recent film about Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman – Orchestra of Exiles.  The film is the last film in which Isaac Stern appears.  Kamio’s record labels are SONY-BMG and RCA.  In 1999, she won a major competition in England – the Menuhin competition.  She was 13 years old.  In 2000, she won a major competition in the U.S.  In 2004, Kamio took first prize in another competition in Monte Carlo.  In 2007, she won the best-known violin competition in the world – the Tchaikovsky.  She was 21 years old.  Kamio began to study violin when she was 4 years old.  Her teachers were Chikako Satoya and Chihiro Kudo, among others.  At age ten (1996), she made her debut with orchestra in Tokyo.  The concert was broadcast on TV and Charles Dutoit was on the podium.  Later on, in the U.S., beginning at age 14, she studied with Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay.  After that, she studied further in Europe with one of the best teachers currently still teaching – Zakhar Bron – at the Advanced School for Music and Theatre in Switzerland.  She received her artist’s diploma from that school but I know not in what year – it may have been 2007.  By then, she had already made her New York recital debut (in 2003.)  Kamio has played a 1727 (nameless, run-of-the-mill) Stradivarius and more recently, the Sennhauser Guarnerius (del Gesu) from 1735.  You can see and hear Kamio – at age 18 - perform the last section of the famous Mendelssohn concerto in this YouTube video.  In this other one, you can hear a PaganiniCaprice – number 13. 

Elmar Oliveira

Elmar Oliveira is a Portuguese (some would say American) concert violinist and teacher born (in Connecticut) on June 28, 1950 (Heifetz was 49 years old.) He began studying the violin at age 9 and later continued his studies at the Hartt College of Music (part of the University of Hartford) and at the Manhattan School of Music. He won the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition (Moscow) in 1978 and the Avery Fischer Prize in 1983. His discography on several labels (Vox, Delos, Sony, Artek, Naxos, Melodiya, etc.) is very extensive though YouTube has precious few videos of his playing. We know he has appeared with every major (and some minor) American orchestras, but his website does not say whether he has played with any of the great European orchestras – Vienna, Berlin, Concertgebouw, Paris Conservatoire, or Royal Philharmonic (London.) Perhaps we should assume he has. Oliveira has over fifty concertos in his repertoire – including the Stravinsky but, oddly, not the Prokofiev no.1 - and innumerable recital works. He currently teaches at Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Florida, where he is artist-in-residence. Oliveira plays the Stretton Guarnerius (made on or about 1729.)