The pianist and composer Yekaterina Chamberzhi lived in Russia for the first 30 years of her life, and then left for Germany. She gives concerts, writes music for various instruments in classical genres (sonatas, trios, children's operas, miniatures), as well as for films and television shows. In Russia, she is better known as the daughter of the famous TV presenter and journalist Vladimir Pozner.
A family. Childhood and youth
Ekaterina Vladimirovna Chamberberry was born in Moscow on May 6, 1960 in a family of famous musicians. Her grandmother and grandfather - Zara Aleksandrovna Levin of Jewish descent and Armenian Nikolai Karpovich Chamberzhi - were composers who made a significant contribution to the development of Soviet academic music. Their friends were Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergey Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian and other celebrities.
Ekaterina’s mother, Valentina Nikolaevna Chamberberry, graduated from Moscow State University and became a philologist and translator, but was somehow connected with music all her life, wrote many books and articles about composers and performers, in particular about pianist Svyatoslav Richter.
Ekaterina Chambergie’s father (she bears the name of her mother) is a famous journalist, writer and TV presenter Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner. Valentina Chambery was his first of three wives, their marriage lasted from 1957 to 1967, and they separated because of Pozner’s romance with his future second wife Ekaterina Orlova. After the divorce, the couple were able to maintain warm friendships. In the marriage, a daughter was born Catherine Chambery - she is the only natural daughter of Vladimir Pozner. Father never avoided communicating with Katya and her upbringing - on the contrary, they have a warm relationship all their life.
Naturally, a child with such musical genes showed early musical abilities. In general, music sounded constantly in the house: in the next room, grandmother Zara Levina played and composed at the piano, Katina's parents collected a collection of various records and often listened to them. My daughter especially liked the songs performed by Edith Piaf and S. Prokofiev’s children's symphonic tale "Peter and the Wolf". At the age of 2, little Katya sang her favorite tunes, and at the age of 5 she played the piano - she mastered the arrangement for two index fingers of the theme from the Hungarian Rhapsody of F. List. Then the girl entered the Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory, which she graduated with honors. At 16, she began to compose music. Higher education Catherine Chambery already received directly at the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory in two specialties at once: pianist and composer (two honors). Her teachers in the specialty were, in particular, composer Nikolai Sergeyevich Korndorf and musicologist Yuri Nikolayevich Kholopov.
After graduating in 1984, Catherine Chambery entered the graduate school at the Conservatory, and in parallel began to teach composition and instrumental studies at the theoretical department of the Gnesins State Music College. She also was engaged in composing: in 1986 she composed the Trio for piano, violin and cello, in 1987 the original work “Complaint for violin, cello and tape”. In addition, Chambery began to collaborate with the cinema: she worked with the director Sergei Bodrov on the music for his film “I Hate You” (1986), and later with Sergey Yursky, who shot the film “Chernov” (1990). In 1986, Ekaterina Vladimirovna was accepted into the Union of Composers of the USSR, and in 1987 she graduated from graduate school.
Relocation to Germany
A sharp turn in the biography of Catherine Chambery was the move to permanent residence in Germany in 1990. According to her, this event was completely unrelated to political or career ambitions - just Catherine married a German citizen and with her and her daughter Masha left for her husband’s homeland in Berlin.
Chambery’s career went uphill in Germany. Here she is known as Katia Tchemberdji, pianist, teacher and composer. She performs solo and ensemble concerts, has a rather extensive repertoire - works by J. Haydn, F. Liszt, F. Schuman, I. Brahms, M. Glinka, B. Bartok, P. Hindemith, S. Prokofiev and others. Her partners -performers at different times were such famous musicians as Natalia Gutman, Oleg Kagan and many others. Katya Chambery took part in various international music performing contests and festivals in Germany and other countries (Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan), went on tour - including to Russia.
Educational activities
Since arriving in Germany, Catherine Chambery has been teaching - teaching composition, piano, and musical and theoretical disciplines. She collaborates with the Higher School of Music and Theater in the city of Hanover, works in music schools in Spandau and Wilmersdorf. In the process of teaching, she developed original innovative methods for teaching children and adolescents the theory of music and composition, for example, she patented a “keyboard line” that allows novice musicians to quickly understand and learn the basic musical elements: intervals, chords, frets and scales. Many of Ekaterina’s students regularly take part and win the contest “Youth Composes”, win prizes and grants.
Creation
Catherine Chambery is no less famous as a composer. Basically, in her work she turns to classical musical genres - sonatas, trios, quartets for different instrumental compositions, small characteristic works (“Memories of Finland” for string quartet, “Labyrinth” in memory of Oleg Kagan for 12 strings and cello, “Journey to China "and others). The list of works of Catherine has many works for children, for example, the opera "Baby Elephant", "The Salvation of Pluto", "Max and Moritz." Over the past decade, the composer specializes in music for television, collaborating, in particular, with his father Vladimir Pozner: Chambergie wrote music for all of his television films and programs (One-Storied America, 2008; Tour de France, 2010; Their Italy ", 2011;" The German Puzzle ", 2013;" England in General and in Particular ", 2014;" Jewish Happiness ", 2015;" The Most, Most, Most ", 2018). All these films were created by Vladimir Pozner together with Ivan Urgant.
