“A sensation for the music world,” raved the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung after a performance by Asya Fateyeva. The classical saxophonist of the younger generation is one of the outstanding representatives of her field. In 2014, she became the first woman to reach the finals of the prestigious International Adolphe Sax Competition in Belgium, earning 3rd place. Chamber music connoisseur Harald Eggebrecht wrote about her in the Süddeutsche Zeitung the same year:
“The young Asya Fateyeva plays alto saxophone so nobly and sovereignly that the beauty of the sound she conjures up in Debussy’s Rhapsody for Saxophone and Piano beguiles everyone.”
Asya Fateyeva, born in Crimea in 1990, devotes herself to a wide repertoire as a classical saxophonist. This includes original works for her instrument as well as works from the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods. The young musician has some experience in adapting compositions for her instrument. Asya Fateyeva strives to give the classical saxophone an even more natural place in musical life. As a tenor saxophonist, she was a permanent member of the renowned Alliage Quintet. Since 2014, the Hamburg resident by choice has been teaching classical saxophone at the Musikhochschule Münster.
The list of her awards and scholarships is long. Asya Fateyeva won the 3rd prize at the International Adolphe Sax Competition 2014 and several first prizes at competitions in Russia, France and Germany. In 2006, for example, she won at the national level at “Jugend musiziert”. In 2012, she won first prize at the German Music Competition in Bonn. Since 2006, the multiple award-winner has been a scholarship holder of the German Foundation for Musical Life and received the Gerd Bucerius Scholarship of the ZEIT Foundation in this context. In 2015, Asya Fateyeva was awarded the Berenberg Culture Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros. Board of Trustees member Professor Hermann Rauhe praised:
“Asya Fateyeva is an exceptional talent and convinces with her warm, elegant playing.”
Asya Fateyeva has already played with numerous orchestras. For example, under the direction of Vladimir Fedoseyev with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein in Vienna. She has performed several times with the Moscow Virtuosi under the direction of Vladimir Spivakov. She has also made guest appearances with the Tchaikovsky Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Ukrainian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and the Giuseppe Verdi Milano Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed with orchestras from Bochum, Bonn, Frankfurt/Oder and Kassel. Her concerts at festivals in Colmar, Fermo, Cologne, Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the music festival “Spannungen” in Heimbach were very well received.
Her education combines the Russian tradition of soulful music-making with the classical school of French saxophone playing. After two years as a young student with Professor Daniel Gauthier at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Asya Fateyeva began her regular studies there at the age of 17 in the class of the renowned French-Canadian. Study visits in France with Claude Delangle in Paris and Jean-Denis Michat in Lyon, among others, provided important impulses. Currently she is perfecting her education in the advanced chamber music course at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg with Professor Niklas Schmidt: in duo with Valeria Myrosh at the piano.
The basis of her education is the music lessons she received in her childhood and youth: at the age of six, the daughter of a professional soccer player began piano lessons with Valentina Nikishina; at the age of ten, Liliya Russanova introduced her to the tradition of the French saxophone school in Simferopol. This was followed by studies with Professor Margarita Shaposhnikova at the famous Gnessin Institute in Moscow, master classes in Gap, France, and finally a move to Germany in 2004.
Photo: Neda Navaee
