Aleksandr Igorevich Zagorinsky was born in 1962 in Moscow. He graduated from the Central Music School at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 1981, from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 1986 and from the assistant traineeship programme in 1988 in the class of Professor Natalia Shakhovskaya.
He is a laureate of the All‑Union Competition for Performing Musicians (Chisinau, 1985, Second Prize), the VIII International Chamber Music Competition in Trapani, Italy (Third Prize), and the IX International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1990, Sixth Prize).
In 1987 he successfully auditioned for the cello section of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic.
From 1991 to 2000 A. Zagorinsky served as principal cello of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic. During this period he regularly appeared with the orchestra under its artistic director V. S. Sinaisky. He performed Schumann’s and Shostakovich’s cello concertos, the solo cello part in R. Strauss’s symphonic variations «Don Quixote», Tchaikovsky’s «Variations on a Rococo Theme» and Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello.
From 2000 to 2007 he was principal cello of the State Academic Chamber Orchestra of Russia, directed at that time by pianist and conductor K. Orbelian.
Alongside his orchestral work Aleksandr Zagorinsky pursued an active concert career within the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic and combined this with teaching.
Since 1999 A. I. Zagorinsky has taught cello at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music.
In 2007 A. I. Zagorinsky took up a full‑time teaching position at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music. He teaches cello both at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music and the Gnesin Music College.
Aleksandr Zagorinsky is an active concert artist with an extensive solo and ensemble repertoire of classical, romantic and contemporary works. A significant part of his artistic activity is devoted to interpreting the music of late twentieth‑century and contemporary composers. He has given the premiere performances of many works by E. Denisov, V. Dashkevich, Y. Kasparov, A. Shchetinsky, J. Appleton, T. Smirnova, V. Ryabov, A. Zhurbin, V. Chernelevsky, V. Biktashev, V. Panin, O. Viktorova, M. Petukhov and A. Shmitov.
A. I. Zagorinsky was the first to perform Nikolai Kapustin’s Cello Concerto No. 2 with chamber orchestra, two sonatas (the Second Sonata is dedicated to Zagorinsky), the pieces «Elegy», «Burlesque» and «Almost a Waltz», «Introduction» and «Scherzino» for solo cello, a suite for solo cello, a duet for alto saxophone and cello and many of the cello parts in Kapustin’s chamber works.
He has appeared with leading orchestras under conductors V. Sinaisky, Y. Simonov, M. Ermler, F. Glushchenko, V. Ziva, K. Orbelian, R. Nigamatullin and others.
Together with pianist and organist A. Shmitov he has recorded a number of CDs featuring works by S. Rachmaninov, A. Tansman and E. Denisov, as well as an album of pieces by Franck, Debussy, Reger and Respighi, and sonatas by Marcello and Vivaldi with organ.
A special place in A. I. Zagorinsky’s career is his artistic partnership with Norwegian pianist and Professor Einar Steen‑Nøkleberg. The two musicians have frequently appeared together in the Small and Rachmaninov Halls of the Moscow Conservatory and in Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Smolensk, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Anapa, Novorossiysk and other cities. The duo has also performed at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, in St. Gallen and at Grieg festivals in Bergen and Oslo. Together they have recorded sonatas by Grieg and Rachmaninov, works by Schumann and Pfitzner and sonatas by Brahms and Mendelssohn for cello and piano.
In 2014 A. Zagorinsky and Steen‑Nøkleberg performed programmes of works by young contemporary composers at a festival of contemporary music in Oslo and then at the «Moscow Autumn» festival in the Concert Hall of the House of Composers in Moscow. In the same year they recorded a CD for the «Melodiya» label featuring works by Schubert and Chopin.
In 2016 a five‑CD box set devoted to the music of J. S. Bach was released, including the six suites for solo cello, six French suites for piano and three sonatas for cello and keyboard.
At the end of 2020 the artists released a digital album of all of Beethoven’s sonatas for cello and piano. In 2024 an album of Max Reger’s music for cello and piano appeared, featuring four sonatas and three suites for solo cello.
Zagorinsky has given many concerts and made numerous recordings with outstanding Russian musicians, including A. Shmitov, M. Yevseyeva, N. Zagorinskaya, Y. Turkina, V. Chernelevsky, O. Priz and D. Khakhamov.
Aleksandr Zagorinsky is a regular participant in the concert life of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, appearing in departmental concerts and festivals of People’s Artist of Russia Professor V. Tonkha, in solo recitals in the Academy’s chamber halls and with student orchestras (symphony, folk, bayan and accordion ensembles), collaborating with eminent musicians A. Koshvants, A. Diev, V. Ziva, A. Lebedev, R. Kaneev and many others.
He regularly gives masterclasses, takes part in various international music festivals and serves on the juries of numerous Russian and international competitions.
