Marina Cheburkina is a Russian-French organist and musicologist, born in 1965 in Moscow. She graduated with distinction from the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory in 1989 in two specialties, musicology and organ, and then completed assistant training and postgraduate study there in 1992 in organ and art history of music. Her teachers included G. N. Egiazarova, Leonid Roizman, N. N. Gureyeva, Yuri Kholopov, E. G. Sorokina, and Yuri Butsko.
From 1992 to 1994 she held a scholarship from the French government. She continued her studies in France and Germany with Marie-Claire Alain, Michel Chapuis at the National Superior Paris Conservatory, Louis Robilliard, and Harald Vogel. Cheburkina later earned the degree of Candidate of Art History in 1994 with a dissertation on the organ music of Olivier Messiaen, defended at the Moscow State Conservatory under the supervision of Yuri Kholopov. In 2013 she received the degree of Doctor of Art History with a dissertation titled “French Baroque Organ Art: Music, Organ Building, Performance,” also defended at the Moscow State Conservatory.
An artist shaped by both Russian and French cultures, Cheburkina combines the careers of international concert organist and scholar. From 1996 to 2010 she was organist of the Royal Chapel of the Palace of Versailles in France. Since 1996 she has also served as organist of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X in Paris, and since 2013 she has been organist of the Church of Our Lady of Consolation in Paris.
Cheburkina is especially known as a major specialist in French Baroque organ music and historically informed performance. The author of fundamental studies on French organ art of the 17th and 18th centuries, including two monographs, she is experienced in the particular techniques and sound world of historical French organs, including the French-style pedalboard, split keyboards, narrow key dimensions, distinctive pitch levels, temperaments, and registrations. At the same time, in Romantic and contemporary repertoire she performs on large symphonic instruments and is recognized as an heir to the great Russian musical tradition.
Her repertoire includes organ music from different eras and styles. She created two original thematic programs, “Royal Organists and Their Contemporaries” and “Russian Organ Music.” She has given premieres of French Baroque works that had not been republished in modern times, including manuscript compositions, as well as works by contemporary Russian composers. She has performed throughout the world, appearing at major international organ festivals and in prestigious concert halls, and is particularly sought after as an interpreter on historical instruments.
Alongside her performing career, she has pursued scholarly and expert work. Since 2006 she has been a member of the National Commission for the Protection of Historic Monuments, organ section, under the Ministry of Culture of France. From 2010 she began collaborating with the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory through concerts, master classes, participation in international scholarly conferences and juries of international competitions, and expert work on organ building. Since 2013 she has been a visiting research fellow at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, where she is the author and coordinator of the project “Organ, Arts and Sciences.”
Her discography for the Natives label includes recordings devoted to Claude Balbastre, the organ of the Royal Chapel of Versailles from the Sun King to the Revolution, and complete organ works by Louis-Claude Daquin, Louis Marchand, François Couperin, Gaspard Corrette, Nicolas de Grigny, Jean Adam Guilain, and Pierre Du Mage with Louis-Nicolas Clérambault. In her “Russian Organ Music” collection she recorded “Two Centuries of Russian Organ Music” and works by Yuri Butsko and Dmitri Dianov. These recordings, made on exceptional historical instruments, were praised by the international press and received several distinctions, beginning with a Diapason d’Or for her first album in 2002.
As a scholar, she published studies and editions on Olivier Messiaen, the organ of the Royal Chapel of Versailles, and French Baroque organ art. In 2005 she was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.
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