Alexander Melnikov

Alexander Melnikov graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied with Lev Naumov. His most formative musical experiences included early encounters with Sviatoslav Richter, who regularly invited him to festivals in Russia and France. He is a prize-winner of prestigious competitions, among them the Robert Schumann International Competition (1989) and the Queen Elisabeth Competition (1991).

He developed an intense and lasting interest in historically informed performance practice early on. His major influences in this field include Andreas Staier and Alexei Lubimov. He regularly performs with well-known ensembles including the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, musicAeterna, the B’Rock Orchestra and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with conductors such as Teodor Currentzis, Charles Dutoit, Thomas Dausgaard, Paavo Järvi and Mikhail Pletnev.

Highlights of 2024/25 have included a residency at the Vienna Konzerthaus and performances with the Munich Philharmonic under Maxim Emelyanychev, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Anja Bihlmaier, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne under Ivor Bolton, the Orquestra Gulbenkian, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, the Kammerakademie Potsdam and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Solo recitals have also taken him to the Berlin and Cologne Philharmonies, and to Lyon, Prague, Madrid and the Toppan Hall in Tokyo.

An essential part of his work is his intensive chamber music collaboration with his long-standing duo partner Isabelle Faust and with the cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. In 2024/25 he performed in various ensembles with these two as well as with Antoine Tamestit, Alexei Lubimov, Olga Pashchenko and Mikhail Shilyaev.

He has recorded the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Isabelle Faust for harmonia mundi (Gramophone Classical Music Award, Grammy Award nomination). They have also recorded the complete sonatas for violin and piano by Brahms (2015) and by Mozart (2018 and 2021). In 2023 Alexander Melnikov released the solo album Fantasie — Seven Composers, Seven Keyboards.