Mikhail Pochekin

Mikhail Pochekin's expressive and radiant artistic charisma helped him win the admiration of the public. His musicality has been recognized by international critics and many of the world's finest orchestras.

In recent years he has had the privilege of performing with the Basel Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, State Symphony Orchestra of Russia "Evgeny Svetlanov", Russian National Orchestra, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Neubrandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, among others. Mikhail has been a guest artist at numerous venues worldwide. For him, music is a universal language in which he can communicate with very different people.

Solo performances have taken him to renowned festivals and concert halls such as the Gasteig in Munich, the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine in Kiev, the Kronberg Academy Festival, the Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg or Concordia International Festival of Contemporary Music named after Sofia Gubaidulina. For many years he cooperated with the Live Music Now Foundation. The main idea of these performances was to bring music to people who cannot come to the concert hall themselves. Mikhail worked with conductors such as Vasily Sinaisky, Heinz Holliger, Daniel Raiskin, Yuri Simonov, Valentin Uryupin, Sebastian Tewinkel, Dmitry Matvienko, Kevin Griffiths, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Mei-Ann Chen or Gavriel Heine among others.

In 2019, the Solo Musica label released his album "6 Sonatas & Partitas BWV 1001-1006" for solo violin by J.S. Bach. The album was acclaimed by international critics. The magazine "Strad" praised this recording as "an outstanding achievement" and the Süddeutsche Zeitung called it "a grandiose recording". Joint performances with his brother, violinist and violist Ivan Pochekin, play a very important role in his life. In 2018 they released their first joint album "The Unity of Opposites" on the "Melodiya" label, which includes the works for two violins by Prokofiev and Glière, as well as for violin and viola by Mozart and Michael Haydn.

In 2021, Hänssler Classic released Mikhail's recording of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 and Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola with his brother Ivan and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. A second collaboration quickly followed in 2022 with Mendelssohn's Concerto in E minor and Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 2, accompanied by the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen conducted by Sebastian Tewinkel.

Mikhail has a great passion for chamber music. For him, it is a very special conversation between people, where the most diverse musicians make music together on stage, and as a result there is a lively communication, a deeper study of the works and a common desire to convey the composer's intention to the audience. Among the artists with whom Mikhail has shared the stage are WenXiao Zheng, Aylen Pritchin, Wen-Sinn Yang, Kenny Broberg, Jano Lisboa, Gabriel Schwabe, Boris Andrianov, Simon Tetzlaff, Kiveli Doerken, Peter Laul, Yuri Favorin, and his mentors Rainer Schmidt and Ana Chumachenko.

Mikhail Pochekin was born into a family of musicians: his father is a violin maker, his mother a violin teacher, his brother a violinist and violist. Thus, violin sounds accompanied Mikhail from early childhood. He received his first violin lessons at the age of five from Galina Turchaninova, and later perfected his craft with Viktor Tretiakov, Rainer Schmidt and Ana Chumachenco, whose lessons changed him forever as a person and as a musician. Master classes and lessons with Christian Tetzlaff also had a great artistic influence. At a young age, his talent was recognized by prestigious international competitions, including the Rodolfo Lipizer, Jascha Heifetz and also Pablo de Sarasate violin competitions. In 2008, he was awarded the Pablo Sarasate National Prize in Spain. As a result of this achievement, he performed a concerto at the invitation of the Madrid Conservatory on the violin "Ex Boissier" by Antonio Stradivari, which was once owned by the famous Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate.

Mikhail also devotes himself to teaching and gives successful masterclasses worldwide.