Dmitry Kogan

Dmitry Kogan was a Russian violinist and Honored Artist of the Russian Federation. He was born in Moscow on October 27, 1978, and came from a well-known musical dynasty: his grandfather was the violinist Leonid Kogan, his grandmother was the violinist and teacher Elizaveta Gilels, his father was the conductor Pavel Kogan, and his mother was the pianist Lyubov Kazinskaya, a graduate of the Gnessin Academy of Music.

He began studying the violin at the age of six at the Central Music School attached to the Moscow Conservatory. From 1996 to 1999 he studied at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of I. S. Bezrodny, and at nearly the same time, from 1996 to 2000, he was also a student at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, where he studied with I. S. Bezrodny and Tomas Haapanen. At the age of ten he first performed with a symphony orchestra, and at fifteen he appeared with an orchestra in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

His performing career expanded internationally in 1997 with debuts in the United Kingdom and the United States. Kogan took part in major international festivals, including Carinthian Summer in Austria, the Menton Music Festival in France, the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Perth music festival in Scotland, Kremlin Musical, the Sakharov Festival, and many others. A special place in his repertoire was occupied by the cycle of 24 Caprices by Niccolo Paganini. His repertoire also included virtually all of the major violin concertos with orchestra, and he recorded ten compact discs for labels including Delos, Conforza, and DV Classics.

In December 2002, the First Leonid Kogan International Festival was held, with Dmitry Kogan serving as organizer and artistic director. He was also the originator and artistic director of the annual festival Days of High Music, held in Vladivostok and, from 2005, also on Sakhalin. From 2004 to 2005 he was general artistic director of the Primorye State Philharmonic, and from September 2005 he served as chairman of the board of trustees of the Sakhalin State Philharmonic. In December 2007 he founded and headed the international Kogan Festival in Yekaterinburg.

Kogan also led a number of notable artistic projects and institutions in later years. On April 19, 2009, Easter Day, he gave a concert for polar explorers at the North Pole. From 2011 to 2013 he was artistic director of the Samara State Philharmonic. In February 2014 he was appointed artistic director of one of the capital's leading musical ensembles, the Moscow Camerata orchestra. In September 2014, under his artistic direction, the First Arctic Festival of Classical Music was held in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and in 2015 and 2016 he was artistic director of the festival Days of High Music in the Arctic in Naryan-Mar. In 2015 he also presented a new project combining performances of The Four Seasons by Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla with contemporary multimedia video projection.

Public activity also formed part of his career. He was the first violinist to give charity concerts in Beslan and after the earthquake in the city of Nevelsk. From March 2012 he served as a trusted representative of President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. Among his honors were the title of Honorary Citizen of the city of Nevelsk in 2008 and the title Honored Artist of the Russian Federation in 2010. He also received a letter of appreciation from the President of the Russian Federation in 2012, the commemorative medal In Honor of the Exploit of Partisans and Underground Fighters from Bryansk Region in 2013, and the medal For Faith in Goodness from Kemerovo Region in 2014.

His discography included recordings of Brahms's Three Sonatas for Violin and Piano (2002), Shostakovich's Two Violin Concertos with Orchestra (2005), works for two violins (2006), violin sonatas by Brahms and Franck and pieces for violin and piano (2007), virtuoso pieces for violin and piano (2008), a disc dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory (2009), works for violin and chamber orchestra (2010), two editions of Five Great Violins (2013), and the charity disc Time of High Music (2013).

Dmitry Kogan died in Moscow on August 29, 2017, in his thirty-ninth year, after a prolonged cancer illness. The farewell ceremony for the musician took place at the Moscow International House of Music, and he was buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. A memorial bas-relief was later installed on the building of the Samara Philharmonic, where he had worked from 2011 to 2013.

Connections

This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.