Olga Pashchenko

Born in Moscow in 1986, Olga Pashchenko began her musical training when she was six years old. Already at seven she won First Prize at the All-Russian Young Pianists Competition and gained enrolment in the Gnessin Music School for Young Talents, where she obtained her diploma with honors in 2005.

Pashchenko received a scholarship from the Russian Performance Art Fund; she was one of the prizewinners at the International Gnessin Young Artists Competition, as well as at the International Beethoven Festival of Chamber Music.

She continued her studies at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory studying fortepiano and modern piano with Alexei Lubimov, harpsichord with Olga Martynova, and organ with Alexei Schmitov, leading to a diploma with distinction in 2010. In parallel, Pashchenko studied linguistics at Moscow University.

In 2017 she was appointed Professor of Fortepiano at the Sweelinck Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Her repertoire ranges from Bach (on the harpsichord) and Beethoven (on the fortepiano) to Ligeti (on the modern Steinway). Pashchenko is a regular guest at early and contemporary music festivals alike, including Utrecht Early Music Festival (where she was named Artist in Residence for the year 2016), the fortepiano festivals of Amsterdam, Zaandijk, and Zutphen, as well as Maggio Musicale in Florence.

She performs in outstanding classical music venues including the Concertgebouw in Bruges and the Cité de la Musique in Paris, collaborating with ensembles such as the Orchestra of the 18th Century, MusicAeterna Perm conducted by Teodor Currentzis, and Collegium 1704 under the baton of Vaclav Luks.

She gave her debut at the Ruhr Piano Festival in 2020 in a radio broadcast from the auditorium without the presence of an audience.