Jevgenija Lisicina

Jevgenija Lisicina
Jevgenija Lisicina
Born	November 11, 1942; Stupino, Russia
Nationality	Latvian (from April 27, 1995)
Occupation	Organist
Children	Sergejs Lisicins (b.1974), Ivans Lisicins (b.1976)

Jevgenija Lisicina (Russian: Евгения Лисицына, Latvian: Jevgēnija Ļisicina, born on November 11, 1942 in Stupino, Russia) is a Latvian organist of Russian descent.

Biography

Jevgenija Lisicina was born in Stupino, near Moscow, in a family descended from Tula armourers, grew up in the Urals. Her father passionately wished a musician’s career for his daughter. She herself dreamed of playing organ music, and a pipe organ seemed to her a mystical instrument for the chosen ones. Having finished a school of music in Yekaterinburg, Jevgenia admissed the piano faculty of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, class of Prof. Vladimir Nielsen.

Once organist Mark Shakhin took the new student with him to a concert in Riga. There, Jevgenija heard the Riga Cathedral organ [1] and got acquainted with the patriarch of Latvian organists – Nikolajs Vanadziņš, her future professor. Jevgenia left piano studies in St. Petersburg and admissed to the Nikolajs Vanadziņš class at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music [2]. Being a student, she performed more than 40 concerts as well as recorded a solo record, and was awarded the Tchaikovsky’s scholarship.

In 1968 Jevgenija Lisicina became a laureate of Čiurlionis International Competition of Organists [3] (Vilnius, Lithuania).

In 1989/90 questioning of the readers of the major newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda ranked two records by Jevgenija Lisicina in the top ten most popular classical music records in the Soviet Union.

Thus, Jevgenija Lisicina linked her life with the mighty building of the Riga Dome Cathedral and its major organ where she has been cherishing the dream of playing in the Riga Cathedral all Bach’s works composed for the organ in one musical project. She succeeded at last in making her dreams come true in 1999 – 2001. She devoted the project to the 315th anniversary of Bach and the 800th anniversary of Riga. By the way, she does not think she belongs to any school of organ music: “For me there exists just one school – that of Johann Sebastian Bach”.

In 2002 Jevgenija Lisicina mastered another musical project devoted to the 110th anniversary of her teacher Prof. N.Vanadzins. There were 9 concert programs in the project including masterpieces by Bach, Vivaldi, Reger, Franck, the works by French, Russian and Latvian composers and Bach’s Musikalisches Opferas.

In April 27, 1995 Parliament of Latvia awarded Jevgenia Lisicina with Latvian nationality for special merits and contribution to culture of Latvia [4]

Awards

Laureate of Čiurlionis International Competition of Organists (Lithuania, 1968)[5].

Works

Jevgenija Lisicina is the author of several transcriptions of classical music for organ performance. Among them are:

Antonio Vivaldi - Gloria for choir and orchestra
Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons for organ
Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures from Exhibition for organ and piano
Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures from Exhibition for organ and percussions
Alfred Schnittke - Ancient Suite for organ
Jāzeps Vītols - The Bard of Beverina for organ
Francis Poulenc - Concerto en sol mineur for organ and piano
Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings for organ
Edvard Grieg - Introduction for “Peer Gynt” for organ and piano
Maurice Ravel - Pavana for organ and piano

Another transcriptions include classical music of J.S.Bach and L.V.Beethoven.

Major projects

1999 – 2001 The 16 concert project devoted to the 315th anniversary of Bach and the 800th anniversary of Riga. Concert programmes included all masterpieces by Johan Sebastian Bach ever written for pipe organ.
2002 The nine concert project dedicated to the 110th anniversary of Prof. N.Vanadzins. Concert programmes included masterpieces by Bach, Vivaldi, Reger, Franck, the works by French, Russian and Latvian composers and Bach’s Musikalisches Opferas.

Recordings

From early in career Jevgenija Lisicina has recorded dozens of organ music solo recordings in the Riga Dom Cathedral (Latvia). Today her recordings count twenty+ long-playing records and eight CDs.

External links

Jevgenija Lisicina on Hermana Brauna Foundation web