Description
Fedor Amosov is an exceptionally talented young Russian cellist who is fast becoming known worldwide. On his first recording for Bel Air, he performs a programme of Russian music accompanied by the Taiwanese pianist Jen-Ru Sun. Several short romantic pieces by Alexander Glazunov, including the well-known Chant du Ménestrel ('Minstrel's Song'), Mélodie, Sérénade Espagnole, and Elegy in D flat major, preface a more substantial work, the Cello Sonata by contemporary composer Ivan Sokolov, dating from 2002.
Born in 1988 into a musical family in Moscow, Fedor Amosov started playing at the age of six, studying at Moscow Conservatory's Central Music College. Amosov later studied with Natalia Gutman and has also taken lessons with world renowned cellists Mstislav Rostropovich, David Geringas, Natalia Shakhovskaya and Dmitri Yablonsky. He has performed regularly throughout Russia, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. He's won first prizes in many international competitions, among them the WAMSO and Corpus Christi International Competitions in the US which led to several American concerts. He has appeared as a soloist with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia as well as symphony orchestras in Japan, Spain and the Czech Republic.
The cellist's first CD - of Six Sonatas of Luigi Boccherini for cello and basso continuo arranged for cello and piano by Alfredo Piatti - was released by Naxos in 2010. John Sheppard of MusicWeb International wrote of it: "I started listening fully expecting to disapprove, but almost immediately I was won over by the sheer musicianship of both the arrangements and the performances...I had not heard of Fedor Amosov before. He studied with an array of fellow-Russian cellists, including Rostropovich, and has won several competitions. He plays with great panache, delicacy when that is called for, and has an enviable range of tone colours. Above all he is responsive to the sheer charm and melodious qualities of the music".
Personnel: Fedor Amosov (cello), Jen-Ru Sun (piano)