Biography
“There is an effortless, unbroken purity to Lozakovich’s tone … [His performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto was] almost icily perfect, but only in the sense that what we heard was so exceptionally clear and crystalline. His playing is extraordinarily beautiful [and he] places his technique at the service of the music…”
Seen and Heard International, reviewing the artist’s BBC Proms debut, August 2022
Daniel Lozakovich, whose majestic music-making leaves both critics and audiences spellbound, was born in Stockholm in 2001 and began playing the violin when he was almost seven. He made his solo debut two years later with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov in Moscow, and before long had performed with, among others, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Moscow Philharmonic and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras, the Orchestre National de France and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He began studying with Professor Josef Rissin at the Karlsruhe University of Music in 2012, and since 2015 has been mentored by Eduard Wulfson in Geneva.
Lozakovich made his international breakthrough in May 2016, when he hit the headlines worldwide as winner of the Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition and, soon after, as returning soloist with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev in the closing concert of the XV Moscow Easter Festival. He went on to win a string of other prizes, including the 2017 “Young Artist of the Year” award at the Festival of the Nations (Germany), the 2017 “Young Talent” award at the Premios Excelentia (Spain) and the 2019 “Promising Young Artist” award at the Premios Batuta (Mexico).
Lozakovich has gone on to appear as soloist with such leading orchestras as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and with some of the world’s most eminent conductors, including Semyon Bychkov, Neeme Järvi, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, Vasily Petrenko, Lahav Shani, Leonard Slatkin, Nathalie Stutzmann and Robin Ticciati. Among his chamber music partners, meanwhile, are Emanuel Ax, Sergei Babayan, Khatia Buniatishvili, Renaud Capuçon, Seong-Jin Cho, Martin Fröst, Daniel Hope, Shlomo Mintz and Maxim Vengerov.
He signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in June 2016, soon after his 15th birthday, a deal that made him the youngest member of DG’s family of artists. Shortly before this, he had been invited by fellow DG artist Daniel Hope to join him in recording a selection of Bartók’s Duos for two violins for Hope’s My Tribute to Yehudi Menuhin album. His first full recording for Deutsche Grammophon, made with the Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks, was released in June 2018 and featured Bach’s two concertos for violin and orchestra (BWV 1041 and 1042), and his Partita No.2 in D minor BWV 1004 for solo violin. It was a great success, reaching No.1 in the French Amazon charts (all music categories), and No.1 in Germany’s classical album chart.
None but the Lonely Heart, Lozakovich’s second album, was released in October 2019. Dedicated to the music of Tchaikovsky, it includes the Violin Concerto, recorded live with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and Spivakov, the Méditation for violin and orchestra and arrangements of two vocal works, Lensky’s Aria from Eugene Onegin and the song from which the album takes its name: the Romance, Op.6 No.6, “None but the lonely heart”.
Lozakovich next joined forces with Gergiev and the Münchner Philharmoniker to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with a live recording of the composer’s Violin Concerto, released as a visual e-album in June 2020 and on CD three months later.
The violinist’s latest album, Spirits, was released digitally in April 2023. It pays tribute to seven of the most iconic violinists of the 20th century, reflecting their virtuosic style in works by Elgar, Debussy, Falla, Gluck, Brahms and Kreisler. “What a gorgeous sense of musicality and beautiful vibrato,” wrote violinist.com’s reviewer. “Daniel Lozakovich, 22, just keeps getting better, if that is possible.”
Recent and upcoming highlights of Lozakovich’s schedule include his debut at the BBC Proms last summer, with the Brahms Violin Concerto; Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, K216, at the Berlin Philharmonie; the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto at La Scala, Milan, and at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (10 July); a Rachmaninoff and Brahms recital with Antoine Tamestit, Klaus Mäkelä and Yuja Wang at the Verbier Festival (19 July); and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer at the Edinburgh Festival (10 August).
Daniel Lozakovich plays both the “ex-Baron Rothschild” Stradivari, on generous loan on behalf of the owner by Reuning & Son (Boston) and Eduard Wulfson, and the Le Reynier Stradivarius (1727), kindly loaned by the LVMH group.
4/2023