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The Russian-born French pianist and conductor, Vladimir Stoupel, received his first piano lessons at the age of 3 with his mother, the pianist Rimma Bobritskaia. He made his concerto debut at age 12, playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. He later studied piano with Evgeny Malinin and conducting with Gennady Rozhdestvensky at the famous Moscow Conservatory, thus laying the foundation for a remarkable international career not only as a pianist, but - increasingly in recent times - also as a conductor. Moreover, he was a pupil of the renowned Russian pianist Lazar Berman for five years.
Vladimir Stoupel emigrated to Paris in 1984 and quickly established himself in French concert life. His international breakthrough came with a competition triumph at the Concours Internationale d’Exécution Musicale in Geneva in 1986. Numerous solo recitals and concerts have since led him to the important musical centers of Europe and the USA. As a soloist he has performed with many renowned orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Kammersymphonie Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphonieorchester, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Radio-Symphonie-Orchester-Berlin, Münchner Symphoniker, Russian State Orchestra, Staatskapelle Weimar, Staatskapelle Mainz, and Staatsphilharmonie Kassel. In the USA, he has been heard with orchestras including the Wheeling Symphony, Lancaster Symphony and Lake Placid Sinfonietta. He has collaborated with conductors such as Leopold Hager, Marek Janowski, Michail Jurowski, Stefan Malzew, Günter Neuhold, Patrik Ringborg, Steven Sloane, and Christian Thielemann.
Vladimir Stoupel has appeared on many of the world’s notable stages, including Berlin’s Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, Avery Fisher Hall in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, Hamburg’s Grosse Musikhalle, and Dortmund’s Konzerthaus, to name just a few. He has participates in many major festivals including the Berliner Festwochen, the renowned Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Piano en Valois (France), Brandenburgische Sommerkonzerte (Germany), Printemps des Arts in Monte Carlo, the Helsinki Festival, Festival La Grange de Meslay in Tours (France), and the Bargemusic Festival in New York. In the Piano en Valois Festival, he played the entire cycle of Scriabin’s sonatas in a single performance by memory. ). He is a co-artistic director and founder of the international festival "Aigues-Vives en Musiques" (France).
Vladimir Stoupel is an individualist with an extraordinarily rich tonal and emotional palette. Owing to his technical brilliance, an extraordinary intensity of expression, and an immense repertoire that encompasses seldom-played and modern piano literature as well as his own transcriptions, Vladimir Stoupel enjoys an excellent reputation among the public and the critics. Thus the Washington Times characterized his playing as “pianistic fireworks” and praised his “protean range of expression”, Berlin’s Tagesspiegel praised Stoupel’s “sizzling clearness of expression” and described his performance as “enthralling and atmospherically dense.”, and, after a solo recital, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung granted the pianist a critic’s greatest compliment: “Unforgettable!” His extraordinary technical command allows him to explore the outermost limits of expression, mesmerizing audiences with his musical intensity. “Stoupel’s interpretational style fascinates,” remarked the Bavarian Radio about his recording of the complete Scriabin Sonatas. "A groundbreaking recording", wrote ARTE.
As a chamber musician, Vladimir Stoupel returns every year to the New York Philharmonic’s chamber music series at Merkin and Avery Fischer Halls. He collaborates frequently with outstanding opera singers such as baritone Wolfgang Brendel, mezzo-soprano Elena Zaremba and bass Evgeny Nesterenko and performs regularly with violinists Judith Ingolfsson and Mark Peskanov, with the cellist Peter Bruns and with the Robert Schumann String Quartet.
Vladimir Stoupel’s interest in breaking up the at times rigid incrustations of the concert business and - in addition to the cultivation of the classics - in dedicating himself to the unjustly forgotten “edges of the repertoire” is also reflected in his CD recordings and diverse chamber music activities. Thus, in 2007, he released a CD on the EDA label, entitled “The Life of the Machines”, with piano works of the 20th century by George Antheil, Conlon Nancarrow, Alexander Mossolov, and others. In September 2010, together with Judith Ingolfsson (Violin) and Leonid Gorokhov (Cello), he released a CD "En hommage Simon Laks" and a double - CD with chamber works by Glinka, Borodin and Dmitri Shostakovich, with Breuninger Quartet. His extensive discography includes a critically acclaimed debut CD featuring piano music of D. Shostakovich (RPC, 1988), Arnold Schoenberg’s complete piano works (auris subtilis, 2001), chamber music by Schumann and Johannes Brahms (auris subtilis, 2002), the complete sonatas of Alexander Scriabin (Audite, 2008) - a highly regarded recording for which he received the Luxemburgian Excellentia Prize, among others - and a recording of the complete works for viola and piano by Henri Vieuxtemps, with violist Thomas Selditz, which received the coveted coveted “German Record Critics’ Award” (Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik).in 2002.
In recent years, Vladimir Stoupel has also made a name for himself as a conductor. He collaborates on a regular basis with the Philharmonie Neubrandenburg, Polnische Kammerphilharmonie Sopot, Nîmes Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Kammerphilharmonie, Orquesta Sinfonica de Cuidad d'Oviedo, and Young Europe Philharmonic, among others. With his own Ensemble Courage, founded in 1999, he has made guest appearances in Germany and other European countries. A main focus is on the works of the 20th century and contemporary compositions. Thus, Stoupel gave an extremely successful debut at Iceland’s Reykjavik Arts Festival in 2009, where he performed works of contemporary women composers (Sofia Gubaidulina, Frangis Ali-Sade, and others) with the Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra. 2009 he conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, the Mendelssohn Kammerorchester Leipzig and the new production of D. Shostakovich’s opera The Story of the Priest and his Worker Balda at Berlin’s Konzerthaus.
The 2010-2011 concert season includes numerous solo recitals and concerts in Germany and France offering him the opportunity to enthuse his audience with masterpieces of Scriabin, Franz Liszt and Schubert. Upcoming concerto appearances include the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt, the Bergischer Symphoniker anthe Filharmonia Zielonogórska in Poland. With his longstanding partner Judith Ingolfsson (violin), he tours as The Ingolfsson - Stoupel Duo.
A French citizen since 1985, Vladimir Stoupel currently lives in Berlin. |
