Tatjana Masurenko

Masurenko plays a viola by Paolo Antonio Testore, made in Milan in 1756, and an instrument specially built for her by Jürgen Manthey (Leipzig 2017), a luthier developing new acoustic and tonal designs.

She also plays a viola d’amore by Charles Jacquot, Paris 1849.

She uses different bows for different periods of music.

Works written for and premiered by Masurenko include the following:

Tatjana Masurenko (born 21 January 1965) is a German violist of Russian descent.

Masurenko was born to a Russian family of scientists and jazz musicians.

Born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, she grew up in Saint Petersburg, where she also started her studies which she then continued in Germany with Kim Kashkashian and Nobuko Imai.

Encounters with Boris Pergamenschikow, György Kurtág, Brigitte Fassbaender and Herbert Blomstedt have also formed her artistic identity.

Masurenko performs and records as a soloist with orchestras in concert halls all over Europe and Asia.

She has appeared with orchestras such as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and the NDR Radiophilharmonie.

She has also played at Mozart Week Salzburg, Marlboro Festival, Bachfest Leipzig, Rheingau Musik Festival, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Musiktage Mondsee, Spannungen in Heimbach, and Istanbul.

Masurenko has won top prizes at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, the Markneukirchen International Viola Competition and the Yuri Bashmet Competition.

Her CD recordings British Viola Concertos (Coviello Classics) and of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's viola concerto (Capriccio) were awarded the German Record Critics’ Prize, the Diapason d'Or and a Supersonic Award.

An active chamber musician, Masurenko has collaborated with Heinrich Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Steven Isserlis, Menahem Pressler, Lars Vogt, Isabelle Faust, Christian Tetzlaff, the Vogler Quartet as well as Carolin Widmann, Jörg Widmann and Daniel Hope.

Masurenko was professor of viola at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theater in Leipzig from 2002 to 2022 and in the same position, teaches at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in Sion, Switzerland since 2019.

In 2022, she was appointed to the faculty of the Colburn School in Los Angeles.

Many of her students have built successful careers and are internationally active as soloists, professors, solo violists in major orchestras and as chamber musicians.

In 2008, she initiated an annual masterclass for viola in Leipzig, which she also directs.

Since 2010, Masurenko has also been performing classical folklore in various programmes with ensembles such as the Volga Virtuoso Quartet (Russian folk instruments) and KOTTOS from Copenhagen.

Inspired by Jesper Christensen’s ideas, her collaboration with pianist Gilad Katznelson in 2017 resulted in the CD, Just a Motion on the Air.

Since 2018, she has also been playing the viola d'amore.

Masurenko has devoted herself to historically informed performance, particularly to the 19th century and Romantic repertoire.

Her teaching method is based on the St Petersburg tradition of the 19th and early 20th centuries and merges with the new ideas and perceptions of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially regarding the interpretation of the baroque and classical periods.

Masurenko is the artistic director of the Iznik International Viola Camp in Turkey and the chamber music series "Viola plus" at the University of Music and Theater Leipzig.