The Viennese pianistAnika Vavic, a native of Belgrade, is passionate about discovering the inconsistencies and ambiguities of the scores she illuminates at the piano, powerfully yet sensitively. She always strives to live up to the creed of her teacher, the cellist Rostropovich:
Anika Vavic works regularly with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Paavo Järvi and Hannu Lintu. During recent years, she has also built musical partnerships with Stefan Blunier, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Kristjan Järvi, Kirill Karabits, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Yutaka Sado and Jorma Panula.
Among the highlights of recent years are her performances with the Mariinsky Orchestra, where she gave the first Russian and Austrian performance of Shchedrin’s Piano Concerto No. 4, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski as part of the BBC Proms, and at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest performing Prokofievs Piano Concerto No.3, and with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna performing Leonard Bernsteins “Age of Anxiety”. She has performed at the “White Nights” in St. Petersburg, the Mikkeli Festival in Finland, the Piano Festival Ruhr, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Grafenegg Festival, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Styriarte in Graz, at Klangbogen Wien, the Beethoven Easter Festival Warsaw, the Carinthian Summer, the Istanbul Music Festival and the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad.
Anika Vavic regularly appears at the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna. Recital tours have taken her to New York’s Carnegie Hall, Washington´s Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Cologne’s Philharmonie, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, Luxembourg’s Philharmonie, Barcelona’s Palau de la Música, Konzerthaus Berlin and to the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus.
At the age of 16, Anika Vavic moved to Vienna, where she studied with Noel Flores at the University of Music and Performing Arts. She also received important impulses from Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lazar Berman and Mstislav Rostropovich. The winner of the Second Steinway Competition in Vienna and its Special Prize for the best Haydn interpretation also received scholarships from the Herbert von Karajan Center. In 2002 the Austrian State bestowed the Women’s Art Prize in the music category upon her.