Anika Vavić

The Belgrade-born pianist Anika Vavić has lived in Vienna since the age of 16, where she studied with Noel Flores at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. She also received important impulses from Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lazar Berman, Oleg Maisenberg, Alexander Satz and Mstislav Rostropovich, among others. Winner of the 2nd Steinway Competition in Vienna and of the special prize for the best Haydn interpretation, she receives a scholarship from the Herbert von Karajan Centre and the Gottfried von Einem Foundation. In 2002, she was awarded the Women.Art.Prize in the field of music by the State of Austria.
Anika Vavić works regularly with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Paavo Järvi, Kristjan Järvi, Hannu Lintu, Jun Märkl, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Stefan Blunier, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Kirill Karabits, Andrés Orozco- Estrada, Jorma Panula, Markus Poschner, Yutaka Sado or Enrico Calesso.
Among the highlights of recent years are her performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the BBC PROMS, with the Mariinsky Orchestra, at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, with the Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra or Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.
She has performed at the White Nights in St. Petersburg, the Mikkeli Festival in Finland, the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Grafenegg Festival, Heidelberger Frühling, the Styriarte Graz, Klangbogen Wien, Beethoven Easter Festival Warsaw, Istanbul Music Festival, Carinthian Summer and the Sommets Musicaux in Gstaad. Anika Vavić is a regular guest at the Vienna Musikverein and Vienna Konzerthaus. Recitals have also taken her to New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center Washington, the Wigmore Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Köln, Cité de la Musique Paris, Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Palau de la Música in Barcelona, the Konzerthaus Berlin and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.
Her chamber music partners include Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, Rainer Honeck, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Daniel Müller-Schott, Carolin Widmann, the Quintette Aquilon and Artis Quartett.
In addition to the works of the Viennese Classical and the Romantic periods, Anika Vavić also devotes herself intensively to the music of the 20th century and the present. Works by composers such as Leonard Bernstein, Rodion Shchedrin, Galina Ustvolskaya, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Kalevi Aho and Giya Kancheli are as much a part of her repertoire as world premieres by Johannes Maria Staud or the Austrian-Taiwanese composer Shih.
After the Corona Lockdown in 2020 a first public concert in her private garden inspired Anika Vavić to establish the Viennese festival Kunst am Nussberg with programmes for adults and children.
With the just as extensive as challenging piano part from works by Frédéric Chopin, which John Neumeier’s full-length ballet Lady of the Camellias demands, Anika Vavić will not only make her debut with the Vienna State Ballet in the 2023/24 season, but also her house debut at the Vienna State Opera.