Bella Davidovich – 1st Prize winner, 4th International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (1949). Bella Davidovich was born into a family with musical traditions. Though her father was a popular surgeon in Azerbaijan and in fact not a professional musician, only an amateur, her mother and grandfather were professionals working in the orchestra and choir of the Baku opera house. Ms. Davidovich started taking piano lessons at the age of six with Maria Bykova at the children’s music school of the Azerbaijan Conservatoire. She made her stage debut at the age of nine (1937), playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in C major with the Conservatoire Philharmonic Orchestra under Nikolai Anosov.
In 1939, she enrolled for the Central Special Music School at the Moscow Conservatoire, where her teacher was Konstantin Igumnov. She continued her studies at the Moscow Conservatoire in Igumnov’s piano class, and in Professor Jacob Flier’s class after Igumnov’s death in 1948. She graduated in 1951. Between 1951 and 1954 she was assistant to Flier at the Conservatoire.
In 1949 she enjoyed a great success, winning 1st Prize (together with Pole Halina Czerny-Stefańska) at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
Until 1976, Ms. Davidovich performed exclusively in the Soviet Union. In 1977 she left the USSR for the first time, accompanying her son – violinist Dmitri Sitkovetsky, who received an engagement to perform in Amsterdam. In 1978, Bella Davidovich emigrated to the United States.
Doors to an international career were swung open with a fabulous debut at Carnegie Hall in October 1979, widely acknowledged as the major event of the season. From that moment on she toured intensively, playing in the world’s greatest halls with such conductors as Sergiu Comissiona, James Conlon, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Kirill Kondrashin, Raymond Leppard, Neville Marriner, Eugene Ormandy, Mstislav Rostropovich, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Edo de Waart and others.
She has a broad repertoire, including over 30 piano concertos, many compositions for solo piano and a rich selection of chamber pieces. Her favourite composer has always been Chopin. In the opinion of critics and listeners, Ms. Davidovich is an unshowy artist who focuses on faithfulness to the composer’s intentions.
Since 1984 she is a US citizen. In 1988 she appeared in Moscow for the first time since she left Russia ten years before.
Ms. Davidovich is also active as a teacher, initially at the Moscow Conservatoire and later at the Juilliard School of Music in New York (since 1982). From 1999, she gives masterclasses at the Conservatoire in her native Baku.
In August 2003 two concerts were held in celebration of Ms. Davidovich 75th anniversary at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, featuring Ms. Davidovich herself, her son Dmitri Sitkovetsky as well as several friends and students.
She has recorded for Melodiya, Philips, Orfeo and Novalis. Recordings include works by Chopin (Concerto in F minor, complete Ballades and Impromptus), Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninov, Brahms, Grieg and Ravel.
Ms. Davidovich participated as a jury member in international music competitions in Maryland, Vevey, Brussels and Warsaw (1995, 2010).
She was married to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky (1925–1958), prize winner at the International Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznań.
Stanisław Dybowski
