Listen to Vladimir Ivanoff
in one of our productions:
Sarband: Vox Feminae (2008)
Vladimir Ivanoff
(artistic director, musicologist, producer, percussion, lutes)
was born in Bulgaria, from where he emigrated to Germany
as a young boy with his mother.
Originally planning to become a film director,
he decided to study musicology, art history and theater studies
at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.
With a prize-winning thesis on the earliest lute manuscript,
he received his doctorate in musicology in 1985.
Simultaneously, he studied lute and historical performance practice
at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Musikhochschule, Karlsruhe.
A grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft enabled him
to proceed with a post-doctoral research project on the
musical exchanges between Orient and Occident in Venice.
He also started lecturing at various European and American
universities and conservatories. Ivanoff has published several books,
contributes regularly to music journals and encyclopedias, lectures at
international symposia and conferences and directs workshops
worldwide for the artistic and career development of young musicians.
In 1986, while lecturing at the University in Munich, Ivanoff founded
Ensemble Sarband, which originated from a seminar
on historical performance practice.
With this group he has since been performing in concerts,
scenic projects, radio, TV and CD productions
all over Europe, Asia and the U.S.
As a CD producer, composer and arranger he works with numerous artists from widely diverse backgrounds, amongst them:
Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Megapolis, Concerto Köln,
The King’s Singers, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,
RIAS Chamber Choir, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
Ivanoff was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1994.
With Sarband, he received two Echo-Klassik CD Awards
in 2003 and 2006. The Region of Apulia awarded him with the
"Premio Mousiké" for the diffusion of Early Music
in the Mediterranean in 2007.
The following year he received the German World Music Award
for his work with Sarband.
As an ensemble director, musician and scholar,
Ivanoff endeavors to mediate between the theory and practice of music.
He illuminates the connecting threads between Orient and Occident,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam, past cultures and present time.
By doing this, he is not interested in
creating hip cross-cultural mishmash projects.
Instead, he is driven to create a deeper public consciousness
for cultural distinctions, for clichés, for the patterns,
which determine our perception of
the Other and the Foreign.
"Vladimir Ivanoff is the musical director, equally captivating as a percussionist
as well as responsible for the choice of poetry and music."
Noreen Hirschfeld, Göttinger Tageblatt, 23.09.2010
"It is part of the artistry of musical director Vladimir Ivanoff
to leave it up to the audience to choose
whether they want to read the events on stage in a religious or an artistic way.
One is grateful for this. Genuine art subsists on the freedom of its interpreters.”
Kersten Knipp, NDR Kultur, 18.09.2010
"Ivanoff, percussionist and musical director of Sarband, set up the programme wisely,
avoiding the major mistake that could have been made: the pastiche.
The result, subtly balanced, convinces and captivates.”
Javier Losilla, El Periodico de Aragon, 09.08.2010
"Before Jordi Savall became famous with it,
Ivanoff was already committed to the vision
that the separation between Orient and Occident
did not make sense in Early Music …”
Stefan Grondelaers, De Standaard (Belgium), 25.05.2010
"With only three instrumentalists and one singer, Vladimir Ivanoff
imaginates a whole sound universe." Martin Wilkening, Berliner Zeitung, 26.04.2010
„Vladimir Ivanoff is a sophisticated cartographer of the exceptional.“
Michael Tschida, Kleine Zeitung (Austria), 31.01.2010
"… overwhelming the Ensemble Sarband around mastermind Vladimir Ivanoff."
Reinhold Reiterer, Kleine Zeitung, Graz, 13.07.2008
"Director Vladimir Ivanoff preserved this evening's narcotic sweetness."
Matthias Wagner, Kronenzeitung, Graz (Austria), 15.07.2007
„ … Ivanoff effortlessly connected on the concert stage what is utopian
on the global stage: that nothing stands between Christians and Jews and Muslims. Except for „and“.“ Michael Tschida, Kronen Zeitung Graz (Austria), 04.06.2006
"Vladimir Ivanoff's strength is to connect different cultures, to build bridges between Orient and Occident. With the «Arabian Passion» … he succeeded that in an outstanding way." Franz Szabo, Salzburger Nachrichten, April 2006
"Vladimir Ivanoff's finely structured frame drum playing gives the whole it's perfection." Frido Hütter, Kleine Zeitung, Graz, 18.07.2005
"There, at the borders of Europe, where our eurocentric sciences and arts stop,
Vladimir Ivanoff just takes off … "
Thomas Muttray-Kraus, Oberbayerisches Volksblatt, 03.02.2001
"Nothing compares to Ivanoff's art of playing the frame drum."
" … Ivanoff crosses borders and thus finds a new music which transfers our dreams about the Orient into a soundscape."
Franzpeter Messmer, Fono Forum 11/2000