“Ivan has something special to say through music”, said Gidon Kremer. Ivan Karizna is a Belarusian cellist, prizewinner of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and the Guilhermina Suggia Competition in Porto. He studied with Jérôme Pernoo at the Paris Conservatoire and with Frans Helmerson at the Kronberg Academy.
Ivan Karizna is one of the most unusually expressive musicians of the young generation, equally known for his poetic interpretations and impressive powerful presence on stage. His playing has been appreciated by living legends from the musical world such as Andras Schiff, who described Ivan as "one of the best cellists of his generation" and Gidon Kremer who has stated once: Ivan has something special to say through music.
Ivan stems from two divergent schools of playing. Until the age of 17, he was brought up in the traditional Russian school, but upon acceptance at Paris Conservatoire he continued studies with Jerome Pernoo and later, with Frans Helmerson at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. During these years he was a prizewinner at the the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Guilermina Suggia in Porto, and many others.
In recent seasons, Ivan Karizna has been soloist with the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony orchestra of Ukraine and others. Working with such conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Stephane Deneve, Juraj Valcuha. In January 2023 Ivan made his much praised debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, replacing Truls Mork in the Dvorak Concerto with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Markus Poschner.
Avid performer of chamber music he frequently collaborates with musicians such as Clara Jumi Kang, Amihai Grosz, Elena Bashkirova, Gerard Causse, Boris Brovtsyn, Enrico Pace, Olli Mustonen, Liza Fershtman, Andrei Korobeinikov, Alena Baeva, Vadym Kholodenko, Mate Bekavac and others.
Ivan Karizna plays the 1760 Tassini cello, ex Paul Tortelier, on generous loan by a member of the Stretton Society.
“The young cellist is a breathtaking, even special musician, who visibly lets himself be swept away into Shostakovich’s gloomy worlds. The tone for this is enormously versatile, can sing and saw, dance and attack, it shimmers in the piano and glows in the forte. In Shostakovich, one feels the paranoia, the deserts of loneliness, in the encore a spiritual force: Karizna also sings to Giovanni Sollima’s “Lamentatio”.”
— Suddeutsche Zeitung
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