Graf Mourja (violin)
Graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was a pupil of Irina Bochkova and Mateja Marincovich. Prize winner of numerous competitions such as Niccolò Paganini (Genoa, 1990), Tchaikovsky (Moscow, 1994), Jacques Thibaud (Paris, 1996), Pablo de Sarasate (Pamplona, 1997), Rodolfo Lipizer (Gorizia, 2000), and the UNISA Competition in Pretoria (2002). In 2010, he won the Grand Prix of the ‘Violin Masters’ in Monte Carlo. He has appeared in solo recitals, chamber music concerts, and, as a soloist, with major orchestras and at prestigious concert venues, such as the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, and the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest. Chamber music partners include the pianists Bruno Canino and Christian Zacharias as well as the violists Nobuko Imai and Lise Berthaud. His numerous CDs for Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, and Chant du Monde were highly acclaimed by the ’Strad’ and ’Gramophone magazines’, and received prestigious awards such as a ‘Diapason d'Or’. He is a professor of violin at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and a sought-after teacher at master classes in the UK, France, Russia, Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Succeeding Nikolai Sachenko, he joined the Brahms Trio in 2023. Graf Mourja plays a violin by Alessandro Gagliano, Naples, 1719.