Tatyana Ryzhkova
Tatyana Ryzhkova was born in 1986 in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. At the age of 10 she began guitar lessons with V. V. Gromov, one of the leading music pedagogues in Belarus. Thanks to her talent, perseverance and the dedicated guidance of her teacher, she quickly achieved a high technical and musical level. This early progress enabled her to compete successfully at an international duet competition in Poland, where she received the highest mark in her group and an honorary diploma as the youngest participant.
During the following two and a half years, she performed in more than 200 concerts on significant stages in Minsk and throughout Belarus, including the Big Hall of the National Philharmonic, the Theatre of Musical Comedy and the Church of St. Roch, as well as at governmental and presidential events. In 1999 she received a scholarship from the Presidential Foundation supporting young talents. Numerous radio and television appearances helped her gain broad public recognition. She began her higher musical education at the Glinka Music College in Minsk under Michael Zhuravlev. After just one year she passed all required examinations and was admitted to the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar, joining the renowned guitar class of Professor Thomas Müller-Pering.
In 2009 Ryzhkova became a scholarship holder of the Neue Liszt Stiftung Weimar. She is a prize-winner of several competitions in Belarus, Russia, Poland and other countries, and has participated in international festivals in Poland, Germany and Italy. She has taken masterclasses with leading European guitarists, including Carlo Marchione, Pavel Steidl, John Dearman (LAGQ), Olaf van Gonnissen, Giampaolo Bandini, Darko Petrinjak, Tomasz Zawierucha and Kurt Rodarmer.
Today she maintains an active concert career and teaches guitar at music schools in Achim and Bremen. Her recordings have attracted more than two million online views. Ryzhkova’s performances are noted for their fullness and softness of tone, refined musicality, stylistic elegance, virtuosity and wide-ranging repertoire. She also writes her own songs, combining expressive content, accessibility, emotional warmth and a theatrical touch.
Today Tatyana Ryzhkova is one of the most widely followed classical guitarists in the world, with more than 500 concerts on every continent and one of the largest YouTube audiences in the field. She has released three albums — Tatyana Ryzhkova Guitar (2010), Expressions (2012) and Dreams of a Russian Summer (2017) — and in 2011 founded her own guitar school in Bremen. Alongside the classical repertoire she performs her own compositions, writing both the music and the lyrics.
