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Russian cellist Nina Kotova, described in a Time magazine feature as "a cross between Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman," will give a solo concert Saturday at the Forbidden City Concert Hall.
Kotova, with a pretty face and a model's figure, is a talented, serious musician.
When performing, she demands, and hits, the most amazing notes - with unbridled passion.
Born into a family of musicians, Kotova was accepted by the cello faculty into an adult class of the Moscow Conservatory while she was a student at the School for Specially Gifted Children.
By nine, Kotova gave her first public performance, and started studying composition.
After winning first prize at the "Concertino Praha" International Competition at 15, she left the former Soviet Union to study in Germany and the United States.
Her career has taken her across the world as a soloist, chamber musician and composer.
She will perform during her concert her own composition "Nina Kotova's Concerto," which premiered in 2000 to rave reviews in San Francisco with the Women's Philharmonic.
Her cello concerto is a complex, gripping affair. There is something else in her work: A conflicted, intense love of her Russian roots.
Respect for history is evident in her music.
Kotova's music is reckless, powerful and seductive. Her vibrato is like a honey-covered contralto with a particularly gutsy lower range.
A lot happens simultaneously during the concerto, but Kotova holds it together.
(China Daily September 27, 2002)
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