Alexander Rudin

Alexander Rudin maintains a dual career as both cellist and conductor, embracing repertoire that stretches from historically informed Baroque interpretations through to the present day. He has held the post of music director with the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra for many years.

Born Alexander Israilevich Rudin in Moscow on November 25, 1960, he completed his studies at the Gnessin Institute (now the Gnessin State Musical College) in 1983, where he focused on cello and piano. He later attended the Moscow Conservatory for conducting lessons with Dmitri Kitayenko, yet continued performing on cello and secured prizes at the Concertino Praga Competition in Prague, the Bach Competition in Leipzig, and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In his capacity as cello soloist, Rudin has appeared alongside ensembles such as the Royal Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, and the Danish Radio Symphony. He has given the first performances of cello pieces by Dmitri Kabalevsky, Edison Denisov, and additional composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. An avid participant in chamber settings, he has worked with pianists including Mikhail Pletnev, Eliso Virsaladze, and Nikolai Lugansky. Rudin has also taken up the viola da gamba for period-instrument presentations of Baroque repertoire, an area in which he specialized during a time when such practice remained uncommon in Russia.

He assumed leadership of the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra in 1988, prior to finishing his conducting studies, and has remained in that role. Rudin has directed recordings with Musica Viva as well as with other ensembles, among them the Moscow Philharmonic. His output as a cellist on disc is extensive, dating back to a 1982 Vox release of Haydn’s cello concertos recorded with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. Additional labels for his recordings include Naxos, Fuga Libera, and Cello Classics. In 2021 he released a Naxos recording of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, D. 821, performed on the original instrument with fortepianist Aapo Häkkinen. Rudin has served on the faculties of the Moscow Conservatory and Yasar University in Izmir, Turkey, and regularly conducts master classes devoted to chamber music.