Maria Korchinska
Maria Korchinska was a Russian-British harpist and music teacher. She was born in Moscow on 17 February (1 March) 1895. She entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1903 and, on her father’s advice, focused on the harp from 1907. She studied with Erdeli and Slepushkin, graduating in 1911 with a gold medal.
Korchinska played in Sergey Koussevitzky’s orchestra. After Slepushkin’s death, she became head of the harp department at the Moscow Conservatory in 1918. From 1922 she performed with Persimfans and also played in the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. Her students included Vera Dulova and Dmitri Rogal-Levitsky.
In 1922 she married Count Konstantin Benckendorff and moved with her family to Britain in 1924. She performed there and elsewhere in Europe as a soloist and with ensembles, including the Griller Quartet and the Wigmore Ensemble. In December 1943, she took part in the London premiere of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, conducted by the composer; a recording was made in 1944.
Arnold Bax wrote several works for her, including the Fantasy-Sonata for harp and viola (1927), and Alexander Shaposhnikov wrote a Sonata for flute and harp (1924). Among her recordings was Handel’s Concerto with the London Baroque Ensemble. In 1960, she and Phia Berghout organized and directed the annual Harp Week festival in the Netherlands. Korchinska died in London and was buried in Claydon, Suffolk. An international harp competition named in her honor was held on the Isle of Man in 1983.