Anastasia Kobekina goes all in

A bundle of sunshine and energy with immense talent, cellist Anastasia Kobekina performed in four concerts in a variety of settings during her residency, which had a significant impact on Beethovenfest 2025.

With a wild and almost frenzied gaze, she plunged headlong into Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Concerto. Anastasia Kobekina opened her first festival concert at the Bonn Opera House with this stirring piece. For her, this music is »total madness«: »We smile even though we will soon die«. You could hear and see that in her performance – rarely have these hammering tones been felt so existentially. After making her Stradivarius cello scream and rage, she announced her encore with the words: »After this music, I need something else that fills me with peace.« She played Bach's Prelude from the First Cello Suite, offering a foretaste of her second concert in the Bonn series.

Stradivari's instrument was not alone at her solo recital. Anastasia Kobekina also brought a Baroque cello onto the stage, complete with a lower bridge, shorter neck, gut strings and a Baroque bow. Both instruments were made in Italy in the 17th century, but while the Stradivari was later converted to a modern setup, the other remained historically authentic. Steely and voluminous versus fine and earthy: Kobekina created a touching dialogue between these two sound worlds. Bach's Cello Suites Nos. 1 to 3 alternated with contemporary solo works, some of which were composed especially for her, as she explained in her charming introductions between works. In the dark Kreuzkirche, the audience immersed themselves in this fascinating journey – for the cellist, the ideal acoustics for conjuring up a feather-light Bach on gut strings with the gentlest bowing.

»I spent years searching for the key to Bach's cello suites. Every teacher or colleague offered their own approach as the definitive solution to ›how it should be played‹. But none of them made sense to me. That changed when I met the fantastic Baroque cellist Kristin von der Goltz. She opened up the world of Baroque music to me. I have been studying this repertoire and historical instruments under her guidance for seven years.«

After the concert, Anastasia Kobekina sat down in the Kreuzkirche's side lounges to talk with audience members as part of the »Nachklang« format, which allowed for deeper personal encounters.

Anastasia Kobekina also performed as a chamber musician, alongside two colleagues with whom she is currently touring. Veriko Tchumeridze (violin) and Alexej Botvinov (piano) are both highly distinctive musicians. Together with Kobekina, they create an interesting interplay. The evening's programme at the Beethoven House in Bonn included a German premiere: Valentin Silvestrov's new trio, »Moments of Memory V«. It is a quiet, introverted piece that means a great deal to Kobekina, as she mentioned in her introduction, particularly given the terrible war that her home country is waging on the Ukraine. The ensemble also performed two popular romantic trios by Dvořák and Rachmaninov. The result was a sound from the trio in which the cello certainly never got subdued!

For her final concert at Beethovenfest 2025, Anastasia Kobekina joined four of the current Beethovenfest Talents to rehearse Schubert's String Quintet together. In this absolute masterpiece of chamber music, the young musicians formed a dream team with the star cellist, who is about the same age. They performed the three-quarter-hour piece with incredible passion and beautiful sound. It was part of the themed event »Alles ultra: The Concert« in the high-rise building on Neuer Kanzlerplatz and was met with rapturous applause from the audience. We are certain that Anastasia Kobekina will continue to be a welcome guest at Beethovenfest in the future!