The pianist and composer Ekaterina Chemberdzhi spent the first 30 years of her life in Russia, and then left for Germany. She gives concerts, writes music for various instruments in classical genres (sonatas, trios, children's operas, miniatures), as well as for films and television programs. In Russia, she is better known as the daughter of the famous TV presenter and journalist Vladimir Pozner.
A family. Childhood and youth
Ekaterina Vladimirovna Chemberdzhi was born in Moscow on May 6, 1960 in a family of famous musicians. Her grandmother and grandfather - Zara Aleksandrovna Levina of Jewish origin and Armenian Nikolai Karpovich Chemberdzhi - were composers and made a significant contribution to the development of Soviet academic music. Their friends were Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian and other celebrities.
Ekaterina's mother, Valentina Nikolaevna Chemberdzhi, graduated from Moscow State University and became a philologist and translator, but she was somehow connected with music all her life, she wrote many books and articles about composers and performers, in particular, about the pianist Svyatoslav Richter.
The father of Ekaterina Chemberdzhi (she bears the mother's surname) is a famous journalist, writer and TV presenter Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner. Valentina Chemberjee was his first of three wives, their marriage lasted from 1957 to 1967, and they separated because of Posner's romance with his future second wife Ekaterina Orlova. After the divorce, the couple were able to maintain warm friendly relations. In marriage, a daughter, Ekaterina Chemberdzhi, was born - she is the only natural daughter of Vladimir Pozner. The father never retired from communication with Katya and her upbringing - on the contrary, their whole life is connected by warm relationships.
Naturally, a child with such musical genes showed musical ability early on. In general, music sounded in the house constantly: in the next room, grandmother Zara Levina played and composed at the piano, Katya's parents collected a collection of various gramophone records and often listened to them. My daughter especially liked the songs performed by Edith Piaf and S. Prokofv's children's symphonic fairy tale "Petya and the Wolf". Already at the age of 2, little Katya sang her favorite tunes, and at the age of 5 she played the piano - she mastered the arrangement for two index fingers of a theme from F. Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody. Then the girl entered the Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory, from which she graduated with honors. At the age of 16, she began composing music. Ekaterina Chemberdzhi received her higher education directly at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in two specialties at once: pianist and composer (two honors diplomas). Her teachers in the specialty were, in particular, the composer Nikolai Sergeevich Korndorf and the musicologist Yuri Nikolaevich Kholopov.
After graduating in 1984, Ekaterina Chemberdzhi entered graduate school at the conservatory, and at the same time began teaching composition and instrumental studies at the theoretical department of the Gnesins State Musical College. She also worked as a composer: in 1986 she composed the Trio for piano, violin and cello, in 1987 - the original work "Complaint for violin, cello and tape". In addition, Chamberjee began to collaborate with cinema: she worked with director Sergei Bodrov on the music for his film I Hate You (1986), and later with Sergei Yursky, who shot the film Chernov (1990). In 1986, Ekaterina Vladimirovna was admitted to the Union of Composers of the USSR, and in 1987 she completed her graduate school.
Moving to Germany
A sharp turn in the biography of Ekaterina Chemberdzhi was the move to permanent residence in Germany in 1990. According to her, this event was completely unrelated to political or career ambitions - just Catherine married a German citizen and together with him and her daughter Masha left for her husband's homeland in Berlin.
In Germany, Chamberjee's career took off. Here she is known as Katia Tchemberdji, a pianist, teacher and composer. She performs with solo and ensemble concerts, has a fairly extensive repertoire - works by J. Haydn, F. Liszt, F. Schumann, I. Brahms, M. Glinka, B. Bartok, P. Hindemith, S. Prokofiev and others. -performers at different times were such famous musicians as Natalia Gutman, Oleg Kagan and many others. Katya Chemberdzhi took part in various international music and performing competitions and festivals in Germany and other countries (Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan), went on tour, including to Russia.
Pedagogical activity
Since her arrival in Germany, Ekaterina Chemberdzhi has been conducting pedagogical activities - teaching composition, piano, musical and theoretical disciplines. She collaborates with the Graduate School of Music and Theater in Hannover, works in music schools in Spandau and Wilmersdorf. In the process of teaching, she developed original innovative methods of teaching children and adolescents the theory of music and composition, for example, she patented a "keyboard ruler", which allows novice musicians to quickly understand and master the basic musical elements: intervals, chords, scales and scales. Many of Yekaterina's students regularly take part and win in the "Youth Composes" competition, win prizes and grants.
Creation
Ekaterina Chemberdzhi is no less famous as a composer. Basically, in her work, she turns to classical musical genres - sonatas, trios, quartets for different instrumental ensembles, small characteristic works ("Memories of Finland" for a string quartet, "Labyrinth" in memory of Oleg Kagan for 12 strings and cello, "Journey to China "and others). The list of Catherine's works includes many works for children, for example, the operas "The Elephant", "Saving Pluto", "Max and Moritz". In the last decade, the composer has specialized in music for television, collaborating, in particular, with his father Vladimir Pozner: Chambergie has written music for all of his television films and programs (One-Story America, 2008; Tour de France, 2010; Their Italy ", 2011;" German puzzle ", 2013;" England in general and in particular ", 2014;" Jewish happiness ", 2015;" The most, the most, the most ", 2018). All these films were created by Vladimir Pozner together with Ivan Urgant.
Personal life
Ekaterina Chemberdzhi is married to German Klaus Brown.
The couple have two children: daughter Maria and son Nikolai. They love their grandfather Vladimir Pozner very much and have called him Vovochka since childhood.
Daughter Maria was born back in the USSR, in 1984. She became a musicologist, journalist, defended her dissertation, is fluent in German, French and Russian. Maria works in radio and television, is the author of music programs. At the moment he lives in Germany, then in France with her French husband and son Valentin, who was born in 2014. Son Nikolai was born in Germany in 1995. He is also a musician.
Ekaterina Chemberdzhi has a half-brother Alexander Melnikov (Valentina Chemberdzhi's son from his second marriage to mathematician Mark Melnikov) - he, like her sister, a famous pianist, Honored Artist of Russia.
