Sergey Levitin

Born in Russia, Sergey Levitin studied in St.Petersburg and Vienna where his teachers were Aaron Knaifel, Mark Komissarov, Mikhail Gantwarg and Igor Ozim. In 1996 he was appointed Concert Master of the Mariinsky Theatre (Kirov) Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev. With that orchestra, Levitin toured worldwide and took part in many recording projects for Philips Classics and Decca including Shostakovich’s symphonies and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade.

Sergey Levitin performed as a soloist with Valery Gergiev and Gianandrea Noseda in USA, Switzerland, Italy, Finland, at the Edinburgh Festival and particularly the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg where he has also appeared with the Wiener Streichersolisten.

In 2003 Sergey Levitin joined the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden where he is currently Concertmaster.

Sergey Levitin won different awards including prize for the best performance of Paganini capriccios at the prestigious Paganini International violin competition in Genova. Recent seasons were marked both by appearances with orchestras and recitals in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, Spain, at the Wigmore Hall, at the Royal Opera House (both with the Royal Ballet and orchestra of the Royal Opera House).

Sergey Levitin has been in high demand as a chamber musician throughout his career. Aged fourteen he won “Concertino-Praha” radio competition as a member of piano trio. In 2004 Sergey Levitin, together with violist Alexander Zemtsov and cellist Leonid Gorokhov founded the Hermitage String Trio of London where he served the violin position until 2007. He collaborated with number of highly acclaimed artists including Sir Antonio Pappano, Alison Balsom, Piers Lane, Alexei Volodin and Nikolai Demidenko.

Sergey Levitin records for Dutton Epoch. World premiere recordings of violin concertos by Charles-Marie Widor, Sergei Bortkiewicz, Maximilian Steinberg and Charles Villiers Stanford with Sergey Levitin as a soloist and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Royal Northern Sinfonia, conducted by Martin Yates were released in 2015,2016,2017 and 2018 respectively.

As a guest-leader Sergey Levitin appeared with numerous leading European orchestras including Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse amongst others. At the request of Valery Gergiev he led “World Orchestra for Peace” in 2000 and 2003.