Sergey Malov
The soloist and conductor Sergey Malov is considered as versatile as he is virtuoso. He impresses with his bravura playing, whether on the violin, viola or violoncello da spalla and this in one concert programme.
His repertoire ranges from early baroque music to J. S. Bach, classical and romantic solo concertos and world premieres of new music.
For his interpretations and programme concepts, the St. Petersburg-born artist with Hungarian roots deals intensively with questions of style, playing techniques and the ethnological origins of the respective epochs. For him, the concept of historically informed performance practice extends from the Baroque to the present day, when he incorporates electric violin and loop station alongside his string instruments to create new worlds of sound.
His constant musical curiosity also led him to the long-forgotten violoncello da spalla, for which Johann Sebastian Bach probably composed his 6 cello suites and played them himself. Today, Sergey Malov is one of the very few masters who has mastered this cello, which is played on the shoulder. This gives him a unique versatility that allows him to incorporate all three instruments, violin, viola and cello da spalla, into his programmes, both as chamber music and with orchestras. This is demonstrated by his solo programmes such as ‘Approaching Paganini’ or with orchestra in play-conduct, e.g. with Britten's ‘Lachrymae’, Gulda's concerto for cello and wind orchestra and Khachaturian's violin concerto.
As a string soloist, he has performed with orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Tivoli Orchestra Copenhagen and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. A special concert invitation took Sergey to the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra with Klaus Mäkelä and the Sibelius Violin Concerto on his birthday. He also has a regular collaboration with the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
For the 2025/26 season, he will make his debut with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and the Augsburger Philharmoniker, and he will hold a residency with the Camerata Hamburg featuring five concerts.
As a soloist and chamber musician, he is a frequent guest at international festivals such as the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the Nelson Music Festival in New Zealand, the Festival de Música Antigua de Sevilla, and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland.
His skills have been recognised in numerous competitions. On the violin, Sergey Malov won prizes at the Paganini Competition in Genova, the Mozart Competition in Salzburg, the Heifetz Competition in Vilnius and the Michael Hill Competition in Auckland. On the viola, he won prizes at the ARD Competition in Munich and the Tokyo Viola Competition.
Sergey Malov's recordings of works by J. S. Bach, Paganini and Ysayes, among others, have been released by DECCA, EASonus, Hänssler Profil, Alba and Pan Classics as well as Solo Musica. In autumn 2021, his recording of the 6 Cello Suites by J.S. Bach was awarded an OPUS Klassik. Also released in autumn 2021 (on Solo Musica) are the 24 Caprices by Niccolò Paganini. In his latest release ‘Bach - 300 Years of Solitude’ on EuroArts / Warner Classics, he dedicates himself to the 3 sonatas and 3 partitas for solo violin by J.S. Bach.
The videos with his violoncello da spalla have been viewed over a million times on the internet. Sergey Malov has been a professor of violin at the Zurich University of Music since September 2017.
