Artem Kotov was born in Ekaterinburg in 1983 and started to play the violin at the age of six at the Ekaterinburg Academy of Music. At the age of nine, he performed the Bach E major violin concerto with the academy orchestra. Following several successful performances at the Ekaterinburg Philharmonic Hall, the Opera Theater and at the music festival organized by UNESCO, Artem was awarded the Scholarship of Russian Ministry of Culture.
Artem won the first prize at the Jeunesses Musicales competition in Bucharest at the age of ten, and the first prize at the “Citta di Stressa” International Competition in Italy in 1996. His other awards include prizes at the “Premio Rodolfo Lipizer” competition in Italy and at the International Competition of Markneukirchen, Germany. In 2007, Artem became laureate of the 5th Uralsk International Violin Competition in Kazakhstan and won the Bach Competition for Strings in London.
Artem’s concert tours include Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy.
During a 2006 tour of the South and Central America, he was invited to give a masterclass at the Cuban Institute of Music in Havana.
Artem Kotov’s repertoire includes the Six Sonatas and Partitas by Bach, Six Sonatas by Ysaye, and ten violin sonatas by Beethoven. Since 2005, Artem has been artistic director of the “Primavera Classica” international music festival, which has had big success at Moscow’s best concert halls, featuring some of the finest artists of the younger generation. Artem Kotov has studied with Igor Frolov at the Moscow State Conservatory and is currently studying at Trinity College of Music in London with Pieter Shoeman. Artem is a Golubovich Scholar, and has a full scholarship for three years. He is playing on an astonishing violin by Ceruti, 1820, which was kindly loaned to him from Trinity College of Music.
