Valery Klimov was a Soviet and Russian violinist and teacher. He was born on 16 October 1931 in Kyiv and was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1989.
He began studying music under the guidance of his father, the conductor and teacher Alexander Klimov. From the age of seven he studied, with a break for evacuation to Stalinabad during the war years, at the Odessa music boarding school for gifted children with Pyotr Stolyarsky, and from 1945 with Beniamin Mordkovich. In 1949 he appeared in public performing concertos by Alexander Glazunov, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Felix Mendelssohn. Around the same time he met David Oistrakh.
In 1951 he entered the Kyiv Conservatory, where he studied with B. S. Fishman. After one year he transferred to the Moscow Conservatory to David Oistrakh's class, graduating with honors in 1956; in 1959 he also completed postgraduate studies under Oistrakh.
Klimov's early competition career brought him international recognition. In 1955 he won sixth prize at the Marguerite Long and Jacques Thibaud Competition, and in 1956 he became the winner of the Jan Slávik and František Ondříček violin competition. His major breakthrough came at the 1st International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, where he took first place among violinists. He had also been a prize-winner at the International Violin Competition at the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin in 1951.
From 1957 he was a soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic. He toured widely in the USSR and abroad, performing with major orchestras under eminent conductors including Yevgeny Svetlanov, Kirill Kondrashin, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Arvid Jansons, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, Carlo Zecchi, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Norman del Mar, Serge Baudo, and Franz-Paul Decker. Among the orchestras with which he appeared were the Leningrad orchestra of Yevgeny Mravinsky, the Large Symphony Orchestra of All-Union Radio and Television, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New York Symphony Orchestra, the Washington State Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
For twenty-five years he maintained a creative partnership with the USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra. He performed in renowned concert venues such as the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Festival Hall, Albert Hall, the Musikverein in Vienna, Madison Square Garden, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and the Sydney Opera House. He also made numerous recordings for labels including Melodiya, EMI Electrola, Ariola, Toshiba, Victor Company, Angel Records, and Le Chant du Monde.
From 1965 to 1989 Klimov taught at the Moscow Conservatory; from 1974 he headed the violin department, and from 1983 he was a professor. His students included Aiman Mussakhajayeva and Elena Denisova. He also served repeatedly on the juries of many international competitions, including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris, the Paganini Competition in Genoa, the Mozart Competition in Salzburg, the Sibelius Competition in Helsinki, the Kulenkampff Competition in Cologne, and competitions in Montreal and Tokyo.
From 1989 he lived in Saarbrücken, Germany, where he taught at the Hochschule für Musik. He died in 2022. His family included his father Alexander Ignatyevich Klimov, his mother Zinaida Yemelyanovna Shekhovtsova-Klimova, his wife Raisa (Rosita) Mikhailovna Bobrineva-Klimova, and his daughter Tatyana Valeryevna Klimova.
Connections
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