Utrecht String Quartet feat. Ilona Timchenko
Biography Utrecht String Quartet feat. Ilona Timchenko
Ilona Timchenko
born in Crimea, gained international recognition when she won the prestigious George Enescu Competition in Bucharest, where she was awarded First Prize—no Second Prize was given. Even before that, she had drawn attention at the Liszt Competition in Utrecht, where she won the Second Prize and the Critics’ Prize. These awards cemented her reputation as one of the most impressive pianists of her generation.
As a prize winner of numerous international competitions, she was also recognized at competitions such as the Beethoven Competition in Vienna, the Maria Callas Grand Prix in Athens, and the Orléans Competition for Contemporary Music.
Her performances have captivated audiences in major concert halls including Wigmore Hall in London, the Vienna Musikverein, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Oriental Arts Centre in Shanghai, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and the Teatro Monumental in Madrid. She has performed as a soloist with prestigious orchestras such as the Holland Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, the Academic Capella of St. Petersburg, the Royal Philharmonic of Galicia, the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, and the RTVE Orchestra.
A dedicated interpreter of contemporary music, Ilona has premiered numerous works composed especially for her. She was the first pianist to perform Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues in their entirety in Italy—in a two-part concert series uniquely intertwined with the poetry of Umberto Saba.
Her discography includes highly acclaimed recordings for Landor Records, RTVE, Albany Records, Bolamar, and other labels. Her debut CD featuring works by Brahms and Schumann was rated ‘Outstanding’ by the International Record Review and also received great acclaim in Gramophone. Her recording of the complete piano works of Antón García Abril received excellent reviews in BBC Music Magazine, Ritmo, and Melómano. New recordings are forthcoming on MDG Records and Challenge Classics.
As a passionate chamber musician, Ilona is a founding member of the Trio Metamorphoses, whose 2018 CD received international acclaim. Her wide-ranging repertoire—from Baroque to contemporary music—reflects her artistic curiosity and depth of expression.
In addition to her performance career, Ilona is also a sought-after educator and artistic director. She is the Head of Studies at the Centro Superior de Música de Galicia (CSMG) and teaches at the Escuela Superior Internacional de Música (ESIM) in Madrid. She is a regular guest professor at the Aurora Festival and Academy in the Netherlands, and the founder and artistic director of the international festival “Peregrinos Musicales” in Santiago de Compostela—a dynamic project promoting young talent through concerts, masterclasses, and mentoring.
Ilona received her artistic training from renowned figures such as E. Richter (Moscow Conservatory), A. Gold (Prince Claus Conservatory), Rian de Waal (Royal Conservatoire The Hague), Michel Béroff (Paris), and Lazar Berman (Florence). She also drew significant inspiration from personal encounters with Albert Lehman, Sofia Gubaidulina, Mark Lubotsky, and Antón García Abril.
Utrecht String Quartet
The members of the Utrecht String Quartet do what they have done passionately for the last thirty years, play the most beautiful chamber music and dedicate their lives to this. They perform worldwide, and in major chamber music venues in the Netherlands where they are resident.
The quartet finds great joy in playing well-known works, well aware that the great composers wrote timeless masterpieces. However, the Utrecht String Quartet have also gained their excellent reputation because of their search for lost and forgotten repertoire and their collaboration with contemporary composers.
It is their mission to save composers from unjust oblivion, creating projects to make this happen. CD productions of music by Mossolov, Bosmans, Sweelinck, lesser known works of Britten, and the complete quartets of Glazunov, Verhulst, Gretchaninov, Lourié and Tchaikovsky are amongst the sizeable selection of recordings for MDG.
When preparing for a first performance Eeva (Finland), Katherine (Australia), Mikhail (Russia) and Sebastian (Germany) approach music as if it were an enigma which needs to be unravelled. “When we have new music in our hands we just can’t wait to try, understand, see and play with it, find tempos, harmonies, dynamics, discuss its intentions, listen to it, discover its possibilities and just learn.”
Their versatility has featured strongly in the quartet’s successful international tours which have taken them as far as Canada, USA, Australia, Finland, and Kazakhstan.
"Their performance is simultaneously intellectual, analytical, and strongly expressive” - Helsingin Sanomat, Finland.
The Utrecht String Quartet has established a successful collaborative relationship with notable chamber musicians such as Severin von Eckardstein, Pieter Wispelwey, Paolo Giacometti, Ralph van Raat, Nobuko Imai, Paul Cassidy, Aleksander Madzer or baritone Thomas Oliemans.
The four musicians find each other in their deepest incentive to play chamber music, wanting to create a wonderful experience that will touch people in their hearts, taking a beautiful piece and its composer as a foundation. Their youthful bravura of the early years is now enriched by an awe of strong togetherness and understanding.
“It feels like coming home, whenever we find each other at a rehearsal or performance in between our other musical activities. We cherish being able to add our own individual voices to the whole, we have learned to understand each other without the need for many words."
