Mozart Concertone K190 with Gidon Kremer & the Kremerata Baltica
"Gidon Kremer and Alina Ibragimova played with much taste and playful humour and were musically one heart and soul with the orchestra. Interesting how Kremer´s rather ascetic, quietly shining and at all times somewhat spiritual tone harmonized in the most beautiful and complementary way with the warm, lyrical sounds of Ibragimova."
– Gottfried Franz Kasparek Drehpunktkultur 02 February 2008
The best music of 2007 – Our music critics describe their most memorable moments of the past year and recommend their favourite recordings
”I’d first heard Ibragimova in 2000, when she was a pupil at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Even as a tender teenager she played with an eloquence and technical flourish many professionals would envy. Not every child star breaks through as an adult. But Ibragimova is shooting ahead, a fully-rounded performer, impassioned and unafraid – even of the unfashionable music of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, featured on her debut on CD. Classical music needs her fire and daring.”
– Geoff Brown The Times 14 December 2007
Huntington Estate Music Festival
28 November-02 December 2008
"Word was already getting around last week about the young Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova, making her Australian debut in Mudgee. On Friday evening she performed Beethoven's Spring sonata with such crispness that it sounded freshly picked...So natural was her delivery that interpretation never got in the way of the music. She worked hard at the weekend, leading with authority Brahms's second sextet and beautifully unpacking the intricacies of Bach's second violin sonata in A minor. Audiences around the country will next year have the opportunity to hear her in concert with the ACO."
- Matthew Westwood The Australian
Britten Sinfonia, West Road Concert Hall Cambridge
21 October 2008
JS Bach: Violin Concerto in A minor BWV1041
KA Hartmann: Concerto Funebre
Schönberg: Verklärte Nacht
"How refreshing to find a full house for a concert with the dread names of Schoenberg and Karl Hartmann on the programme. Hartmann’s Concerto Funebre…makes big demands on the players. They were brilliantly met here, not just by the soloist, the 22-year-old Russian, Alina Ibragimova – but also by the Sinfonia, demonstrating telepathic rapport to negotiate fiendish tempo and mood changes…”
– Richard Morrison The Times October 2007
Karl Amadeus Hartmann: complete works for violin
Hyperion Records CDA67547
with the Britten Sinfonia
“As soloist and director, Ibragimova wrings a performance of remarkable commitment and the Britten Sinfonia has never sounded better. Impressive too are her performances of Hartmann’s 1927 Suites and Sonatas for unaccompanied violin.
– Anna Picard Independent On Sunday 04 November 2007
"…an auspicious and admirably adventurous recording debut for one of the most exciting of today's young violinists, Alina Ibragimova. With the Britten Sinfonia strings providing incisive support, she steers a committed yet level-headed course through this emotive work, bringing plenty of tonal variety and expressive subtlety to play on Hartmann's deeply felt music. These characteristics also colour her brilliant playing of the solo works, with their echoes of everything from Bach to Bartók.”
– Matthew Rye Sunday Telegraph 30 September 2007
"Ibragimova brings to each piece a formidable technical and musical command, her sound always vividly coloured, her response the right mix of spontaneous passion and practised control."
– Stephen Pettit Sunday Times 16 September 2007
"Ibragimova's fiercely clear-eyed account - alive to the music's expressive demands as well as its dynamic markings...faces stiff competition but need not fear comparison with any of the dozen or so rival accounts. Her technique is formidable to say the least. Recommended."
– Guy Rickards Gramophone September 2007
"Alina Ibragimova's account...ranks with the best. The way in which the Britten Sinfonia support and enfold their young soloist's beautifully nuanced and textured playing is a model of close-knit ensemble playing."
– Andrew Clements BBC Music Magazine September 2007
"...she has clearly taken huge trouble to get inside this music and give performances of insight, dedication and bravura. Ibragimova and the Britten Sinfonia’s wild-eyed enthusiasm and musical consideration – superbly recorded – could well be the best way to enter Hartmann’s specific but universal world. A revelation!"
– Colin Anderson Classical Source September 2007
"As a calling-card for this richly gifted, Russian-born but UK-trained violinist, the disc could hardly be improved upon"
– Peter Quantrill The Strad September 2007
" With her supreme technical command and good taste, Ibragimova has nothing to fear... whatever she plays, it’ll be worth hearing."
– Geoff Brown The Times 31 August 2007
Recital with Cédric Tiberghien
Wigmore Hall, 24 September 2007
“Ibragimova showed herself to be a player of charm and vitality, adept at subtly shaping phrases and with a gift for sotto voce playing.”
– Tim Homfray The Strad December 2007
Recital with Cédric Tiberghien
Cheltenham International Music Festival, 14 July 2007
“With Ibragimova every tone colour is at her fingertips, yet she’s never the mechanical doll. She’s already gone beyond superb technique; she feels and lives the music, even a hardy chestnut like Ravel’s Tzigane. Both of these players have the potential to conquer the world.”
– Geoff Brown The Times 17 July 2007
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra tour March 2007
Britten Violin Concerto op.15
"The power was so total, both in the gentle and dramatic parts, that it was no longer Britten, but Alina Ibragimova: she made the music her own. Despite her young age she is definitely the most talented violinist I have heard for a long time. I am convinced she will have a brilliant future."
– Norrländska Socialdemokraten
"...in the encore she let the emotion blossom. To hear Bach played with such feeling put a tear in the corner of the eye of this sour critic, which is something not many can achieve. Ibragimova is world-class and we will hear much from her over many years to come."
– Västerbottens Folkblad
"I don't believe I have heard anything so good and I have heard a lot of classical music through the years."
– Norrbottens Kuriren
"She is at her start of a world-class career and presents Twentieth Century music with complete understanding and freedom."
– Länstidningen Östersund
"Alina Ibragimova had us spell-bound with her fabulous playing."
– Tidningen Ångermaland
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Stefan Solyom
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No.1
City Halls Glasgow 21 February 2007
"What was most convincing about the astonishing performance by Ibragimova of the Shostakovich was not the sizzling virtuosity and mind-blowing acrobatics of her playing (they can all do that) but the profound maturity and impassioned conviction brought to the sombre, haunting interpretation of the work by this very special young musician."
– Michael Tumelty Glasgow Herald 22 February 2007
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä
Sibelius: Violin Concerto
Symphony Hall Birmingham 17 November 2006
"Out of the orchestras's shimmering stillness Ibragimova spun a line of exquisite intensity, growing quickly into passion; she is a player capable of thoughtful artistry and exciting abandonment. With Vänskä guaranteeing the Sibelian sonorties, this performance absolutely caught the work's elusive mix of energy and expansion"
– John Allison Sunday Telegraph
Recital with Huw Watkins
Wigmore Hall, 06 November 2006
"Alina Ibragimova is…destined to be a force in the classical music firmament for decades to come.
I love the open, honest quality of her playing. You feel that you are getting the music straight from the composer’s quill, not garnished with the sort of interpretative gimmicks that young performers often throw in to kid us that they have interesting minds as well as flying fingers.
There is at least one compelling reason why Ibragimova doesn’t need gimmicks. The sound she produces…is mesmerising: powerful yet never overdriven, golden-toned and with a lovely singing quality. Then there is her near faultless intonation. She played Bach’s Sonata in A minor for solo violin, massive fugue and all, with virtually no vibrato — a walk on a high wire with no safety net — yet the double-stoppings were as sweet as honey.
Best of all, however, she is adventurous. Between the Bach sonata and Prokofiev’s Five Melodies — where she went from ethereal harmonics to gloriously exuberant fortissimos, before ending with a lovely withdrawal into introspection — she gave the first performance of a Partita for solo violin specially written for her by the 30-year-old British composer Huw Watkins. Ibragimova delivered it with huge assurance and insight, as if she had been playing it all her life. That’s how all new music should be sold to the public."
– Richard Morrison The Times
Britten Sinfonia / Paul Watkins
Snape Proms Aldeburgh, 04 August 2006
"…The Lark Ascending, in which violinist Alina Ibragimova's playing carried a subtle angst, making it rather different from the usual English pastoral idyll."
- Rian Evans The Guardian
City of London Festival 26 June 2006
recital with Cedric Tiberghien
"Ravel's gypsy evocation Tzigane, one of the most formidable works in the repertoire, was made to sound effortless in Ibragimova's hands, culminating in an almost reckless speed for the final bars that she used to display her phenomenal control and technique."
- Matthew Rye The Daily Telegraph
Philharmonia Orchestra / Sir Charles Mackerras
Queen Elizabeth Hall London, 10 June 2006
"...she produced easily the most complete performance of the solo concertos this month. Her remarkable assuredness was allied to probing musicianship that never allowed violinistic hi-jinks to take over the first movement, and that fashioned well-defined contours into the stillness of the central Andante. Even the ebullient finale she inflected with light and shade. Ibragimova…has unmistakable abilities well beyond her years."
- Edward Bhesania The Strad
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Yasuo Shinozaki
City Halls Glasgow, 07 June 2006
"Alina Ibragimova gave a zestful reading of Berg's violin concerto. It was easy to be impressed by the articulation in her fingering during the demanding cadenza, but just as crucial was her brilliant bowing technique and dynamic control"
- Keith Bruce Glasgow Herald
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Alexander Annisimov
Mozart: Violin Concerto No.4 in D major K218
Symphony Hall Birmingham, 16 November 2005
"This astonishing 20-year-old violinist…produces a gentle, smiling tone glowing like a filament of light, and plays with an easy fluency between bow and fingers which puts all kinds of styles within her grasp…remarkable cadenzas, searching and witty, which were Ibragimova's own"
- Christopher Morley Birmingham Post
Hong Kong Sinfonietta / Yip Wing Sie
02 September 2005
"During the opening movement [of the Sibelius Violin Concerto] she swung effortlessly between brooding and rhapsodic…the finale was exhilarating from the soloist's first note."
- Sam Olluver South China Morning Post
Verbier Festival
Kremerata Baltica with Gidon Kremer
01 August 2005
"The Kremerata Baltica, with Gidon Kremer as soloist and director, gave a spirited performance of Bach's 'Double' violin concerto with outstanding young violinist Alina Ibragimova complementing Kremer."
- Maggie Williams The Strad
Salzburg Festival, 27 July 2005
Kremerata Baltica with Gidon Kremer
"[Gidon Kremer] was joined by the latest fiddle sensation Alina Ibragimova for a sprightly Bach Double Violin Concerto."
- Matthew Rye Daily Telegraph
Mozart Week at the Salzburg Mozarteum, 25 January 2005
Kremerata Baltica, Soloists: Alina Ibragimova, Gidon Kremer, Thomas Zehetmair & Vadim Repin
"Directing the Mozart D major concert, KV 211 from the violin, she found a simple, un-forced expressiveness which emerged naturally from her poignant interpretation. It is in this spirit also that her own cadences arose: an amazing talent."
- Karl Harb Salzburger Nachrichten
Left to right: Thomas Zehetmair, Gidon Kremer, Alina
& Vadim Repin
"…in the middle [of the concert] a big talent was to be discovered: the 19 year-old Alina Ibragimova, with perfect technique and magical lightness of tone, was captivating."
- Hans Langwallner Kronenzeitung
"The stakes were very high. The 19 year-old violinist Alina Ibragimova scores with a young girl's charm, is without doubt very talented, technically perfect, posseses a beautiful, large tone, and writes her own cadenzas with confidence…a vivid and highly acclaimed interpretation of the D major concerto KV 211."
- Gottfried Franz Kasparek DrehPunktKultur
City Side Symphony / Steven Joyce
Britten: Violin Concerto op.15
LSO St Luke's London, 25 September 2004
"It is obvious at once that she is an intensely serious musician and a potential star…this wonderful young girl is something very special indeed"
- Jessica Duchen The Strad
RSO Saarbrücken / Marc Soustrot
22 November 2003
"Ibragimova emerged as an uncommonly experienced soloist, sensitively filling Chausson's Late Romantic Poéme with life and feeling"
- Saarbrücker Zeitung
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra / Lü Jia
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, op.35
11 September 2003
"If she continues at this pace she will have the world at her feet."
- Michael Bruze Norrköpings Tidningar
"Anyone who heard her play the Sibelius Concerto to Maxim Vengerov at a recent masterclass will have realised at once that hers is no ordinary talent. International stardom certainly awaits her."
- Jessica Duchen The Strad
London Chamber Orchestra / Christopher Warren-Green
St John's Smith Square London, 20 June 2003
"The main attraction of the evening was to hear the young Russian-born violinist, Alina Ibragimova. We shall be hearing a great deal more of her…. the final section of the slow movement achieved the kind of emotional innocence and rapt poetry one hears all too rarely. One does not have to be 17 to play this music but it seems to help – although it was Mendelssohn's last major work he was still only 35 when he completed it."
- Douglas Cooksey Classical Source
LSSO / Thomas Sanderling
Barbican Centre London, 21 January 2003
"Alina Ibragimova gave a remarkably mature performance of Ravel's Tzigane. Her lush and supremely assured tone soared out to fill the hall from the outset, and her control of Ravel's sashaying melodies, floating harmonics and whispered arpeggios was astonishing."
- Catherine Nelson The Strad
Maxim Vengerov Masterclass
St Paul's School Barnes, January 2002
"The name of Alina Ibragimova is one to remember in the years ahead. A pupil at the Yehudi Menuhin School, she is a 16 year old who amazed the audience with her power, wonderful tone, musicianship and passion in the Sibelius Violin Concerto."
- Georgina Dinneen St Paul's School Magazine
Yehudi Menuhin Memorial Concert
Queen Elizabeth Hall London, November 2000
"Alina Ibragimova's thrilling journey through Mendelssohn's youthful Violin Concerto in D minor was astonishing: many players twice her age would be lucky to command her unforced strength and fullness of tone. We were putty in her hands from her very first notes."
- Geoff Brown The Times
Yehudi Menuhin International Competetion for Young Violinists
April 2000
"Alina Ibragimova is a pupil at the Menuhin School [where] Yehudi had worked with her many times: at Folkestone one felt his spirit hovering happily over the gathering...assembled in his name. As Alina played the Ysa˙e Sonata dedicated to George Enescu one sensed the continuation of a very long tradition of violin teaching and the strength of Yehudi's dream." From the biography of Yehudi Menuhin by Humphrey Burton