Sergey Ostrovsky
Current centre of life:
Switzerland
My career aspiration as a child:
I have always known that I wanted to become a violinist, decided to do so at the age of 4 and never regretted it, because the stage, the performances, the music always had a living place in my heart.
This was the profession my parents envisioned for me:
I come from a family of musicians, but my parents never pushed me, neither to practice nor to develop my career, but created the most favourable conditions for me to become a professional. And my father Valery is a great musician and educator, he has inspired me all my life.
Works or concert experiences that shaped me:
My first Mendelssohn with the Symphony Orchestra, Brahms Double Concerto with Zubin Mehta, many great performances. Beethoven 7th as conductor, Schubert “Death and the Maiden” in the Kölner Philharmonie, when Isaac Stern cried afterwards…. When Ann-Sophie Mutter played the Beethoven concerto with the Concertgebow Orchestra, you could touch the sound; concerts of the Borodin Quartet in the 80s…
Work with the greatest music-making pleasure (and why?):
Brahms… everything. Schubert’s late work… it fills you with an unreal energy, you feel like you’re under hypnosis.
I would like a work for my instrument by this composer (and why?):
Brahms and I already have ;)
I would get up in the middle of the night for that:
Conducting or solo concerto with orchestra!
Special / curious own concert experience:
Playing to unusual audiences in hospitals, prisons, psychiatric wards
My most valuable tip for the next generation of musicians:
Don’t wait to get in shape, give it your all, be obsessed with preparing for every project, especially when playing with teachers, you need to be 10 times more prepared.
That's what I wish for the future of the classical music scene:
That we will have enough inspiring artists, not just good-selling and good-looking ones.
My next project:
Small – I play the Tchaikovsky concerto in Geneva.
More global – I want to create an orchestra in Geneva called Ensemble Symphonique Geneve.
That's what I associate with Leipzig as a city of music:
Working with a wonderful Peter Bruns.