Maria Krestinskaya

Baroque violinist and viola d’amore player Maria Krestinskaya began violin lessons in Tbilisi in Georgia at the age of seven. After moving to St Petersburg, she attended the Special Music School and later graduated with honours from the St Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, as well as attending masterclasses and courses given by Zakhar Bron, Boris Kuschnir, Marie Leonhardt, Andrew Manze, Monica Huggett, Peter van Heyghen and Andrew Lawrence-King.

She has been a prizewinner at several international competitions and festivals, including Concertino Praga in the Czech capital, the Virtuosos of 2000 in St Petersburg, the Jascha Heifetz Competition in Vilnius and the Alexander Glazunov Competition in Paris, as well as winning a grant from the Mstislav Rostropovich Fund.

Maria Krestinskaya has performed as a solo baroque violinist and a member of the Soloists of Catherine the Great Ensemble at early music festivals in St Petersburg, Utrecht, Avignon, Vantaa and Boston. She has also appeared in concert in the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Other projects include Paisiello’s I filosofi immaginari in Utrecht and St Petersburg, being guest concertmaster with Il Complesso Barocco for Gluck’s Demofoonte at the Theater an der Wien under Alan Curtis and the first performances of Johann Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow at the Boston Early Music Festival directed by Stephen Stubbs and Paul O’Dette. Her other musical partners include Michael Chance, Phoebe Carrai, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Bob van Asperen, Hugo Reyne, the Sagittarius Vocal Ensemble and Dmitry Sinkovsky’s La Voce Strumentale Ensemble.

In 2011 Maria Krestinskaya joined the Baltic Baroque Ensemble under the direction of Grigori Maltizov for its Vivaldi Collection project, aimed at recording all of the composer’s works for solo violin. The same year she founded the Barocco Concertato Ensemble in St Petersburg, which won third prize at the 2016 International Van Wassenaer Competition in Utrecht.