Maria Ioudenitch

Born in Russia, violinist Maria Ioudenitch immigrated with her musical family to the United States at the age of two and grew up in Kansas City. In 2021 she received first prizes in the Ysaÿe International Music Competition, the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition and the Joseph Joachim International Competition. She also received numerous special prizes at these competitions, including the Chamber Music Award in Hannover, the prize for Best Interpretation of the Commissioned Work, the Henle Urtext Prize, and a recording deal with Warner Classics.

Recognized for her innovative programmes, she released her first album on Warner Classics, Songbird, with pianist Kenny Broberg on 24 March 2023. The recording spans repertoire from Franz Schubert, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann to Nikolai Medtner, Richard Strauss and Nadia Boulanger. Her upcoming concerto performances include works by Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and Barber as well as Haydn’s Violin Concerto in G major and Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D major. Her recent recital programmes combine standard violin repertoire with works by George Gershwin, William Grant Still, Dolores White and Fazil Say.

In recent months, Maria Ioudenitch has made her debuts with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin at the Berlin Philharmonie, the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and the Münchner Symphoniker, and has returned to her home town Kansas City Symphony. Other recent engagements have taken her to the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the Lithuania Chamber Orchestra and the Utah Symphony. Her growing list of conductors includes Andrey Boreyko, Alpesh Chauhan, Kevin John Edusei, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Andrew Manze, Ruth Reinhardt and Hugh Wolff.

She is also an active chamber musician and has taken part in multiple chamber music tours with the Ravinia Steans Music Institute and the Marlboro Music Festival.

Maria began playing violin with Gregory Sandomirsky at the age of three and continued her studies with Ben Sayevich at the International Center for Music in Kansas City. She completed her bachelor’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi. She earned both her master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Miriam Fried.

In the past year, Maria has been mentored by Sonia Simmenauer as part of Simmenauer’s initiative zukunfts.music. She is currently in the Professional Studies programme at the Kronberg Academy, working with Christian Tetzlaff.