Anastasia Vedyakova
Anastasia Vedyakova is a Russian musician, violinist, conductor, composer, actress, and artist. She is a soloist with the Smolensk Philharmonic and was named a 2025 Grammy Award nominee.
She began studying violin at age four and received a diploma as the youngest participant at the Third Moscow Young Musicians Competition when she was six. In 1998, she entered the Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory, where she studied with Eduard Grach; from 2003 she also studied with Viktor Pikaizen. She graduated with honors in 2009 and entered the Moscow Conservatory, studying violin with Grach and composition with Alexander Koblyakov. She completed her conservatory studies with honors in 2014 and then worked as an assistant trainee with the conservatory’s Contemporary Music Orchestra.
Vedyakova made her solo debut in Moscow in 2000, won first prize at an international competition in Athens that year, and began touring abroad in 2001. She has performed as a violin soloist in Russia and internationally, including with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Moscowia Orchestra, the Seasons Orchestra, and the Oleg Lundstrem State Jazz Orchestra. Her repertoire spans more than 700 works, from the Baroque period to the 21st century. She became a soloist with the Lipetsk Philharmonic in 2017 and the Smolensk Philharmonic in 2018, and gives master classes in violin, viola, jazz improvisation, chamber ensemble, and composition.
As a composer, Vedyakova has written works including Mirage for string quartet, which premiered at the 2013 Kyiv Music Fest and was later included on the 2017 album String Quartet Smackdown, and Affection Saga, premiered at Switzerland’s Musica Aperta festival in 2018. Her solo organ piece 3D also received its world premiere at the Moscow Conservatory. She was the first performer of works by Nikolai Manasevich and has promoted the music of Reinhold Glière since 2010. In 2022, she and organist Anastasia Bykova gave the world premiere of a work written for their duo by Grammy-nominated composer Nadim Majdalani. In 2024, Vedyakova founded and led the Slonimsky Gala ensemble as its soloist and conductor.
Vedyakova pursued conducting studies at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music and in St. Petersburg, studied at the Juilliard School in 2023–24, and has continued her training at the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg Conservatory and in Markand Thakar’s conducting course. She has won international conducting competitions, including the Symphony Orchestra Conductors Competition in 2022, and has received awards for her compositions and performances. Her honors include the Elgar Society’s Certificate of Merit and the Elgar Medal, as well as the French Medal for Merit in Science and Education in 2025.