Dr Maria Razumovskaya announced as the Faculty's new Director of Musical Performance and Performance Studies
The Faculty of Music is delighted to announce that Dr Maria Razumovskaya has been appointed as the Director of Musical Performance and Performance Studies for the academic year 2023-24.
She brings an international profile as an active pianist (solo, collaborative and radio/TV broadcast), published researcher (practice-as-research, performance studies and musicology), and teacher (professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama). Her specialist interests includes identity-creation through performance, interactions of Soviet and post-Soviet performance practice and socio-cultural histories, and practice-as-research.
On her appointment, Maria writes: "I am excited and honoured to be supporting the students use the act of performance as powerful tool with which to study and shape the world around them. Together we will create an environment where their performances and compositions navigate, question and offer personal responses to the stimulating diversity of ideas, communities and artefacts that they find in Oxford. Giving them the platforms to curate their performances in public spaces will allow their musical exploration of themes including under-represented voices, displacement, sustainability and fragility of the natural environment, community health and well-being, technology and the arts, urban communities, historical legacy, and the breaking of social barriers. Doing so celebrates the ways in which their unique syntheses of artistry and scholarship benefits the wider Oxford community."
Razumovskaya has been described as a ‘virtuoso story-teller of the piano’ (Le Courrier). She performs at many major international festivals and venues including the Cheltenham Festival, Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, Holywell Room, SJE Arts Piano International Series, Lavaux Classique, Zurich Stadt Kultur, Piano City Milan, Paris Musée d’Orsay, Yogyakarta Philharmonia, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, and the Rachmaninov Hall and Skryabin Museum in Moscow.
Razumovskaya's live performances have been recorded and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and featured as highlights in their ‘Performing Miracles’ series, RTS, Espace 2, Radio Orfeo, and ABC Radio.
Razumovskaya's debut-disc recorded by Tony Faulkner on the Malachite label was shortlisted for the Liszt Disque Grand Prix, and subsequent recordings for the label have been singled out by international publications such as Pizzicato magazine, and critically praised for the performance’s ‘extraordinary mastery’ [American Record Guide] and ‘staggering passion and lyricism’ [Gramophone]. Further recordings including the works of Busoni, Liszt, CPE Bach and Rachmaninov; Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky.
Chamber music partners include Faina Lushtak, Ilan Schneider, Wolfram Christ, the Alban Berg Quartet, principals of the Berlin Philharmonic, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonia, Basel Philharmonic, National Opera Orchestra of Paris, and soloists of the Mariinsky Opera, Bolshoi Opera, and Metropolitan Opera. As a faculty and guest artist at international summer schools she has played recitals alongside artists including Nikolai Lugansky, Marc Andre Hamelin, and Piotr Andrezewski; and premiered works by composers including Philippe Hersant.
She is passionate about encouraging academic and broader audiences to share in her curiosity for the stories behind the music and its makers. Razumovskaya's writings include a monograph on the legendary pianist and pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus (Boydell & Brewer). This was awarded CHOICE Outstanding Title. She has also written book chapters (Indiana University Press, Palgrave Macmillan), articles for academic journal, and the wider press.
She is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, guest faculty at several international music academies and festivals, and an external examiner for several institutions.
For more information about Maria, please visit her website.
