Aisha Orazbayeva

Violinist Aisha Orazbayeva specializes in avant-garde music and in Baroque works. Both specialties are uncommon for a musician from Central Asia.
Orazbayeva was born in the Kazakh capital of Almaty in 1985 when Kazakhstan was still part of the Soviet Union. Her family was filled with musicians and actors, and she remembers a grandfather’s singing, accompanied by the Kazakh dombra lute. At the age of four and a half, she saw violinist Aiman Mussahadjaeva performing violin on television and decided she wanted to be a violinist. Orazbayeva was enrolled at Almaty’s Special Music School and embarked on violin training in the traditional Russian manner. She has said that she found her own voice when she rebelled against that training. Orazbayeva went on for further studies in Italy and England, and in the latter city, she began to find outlets for her unorthodox playing at such venues as Cafe Oto, where cellist Lucy Railton organized a series of contemporary music. She settled in the south of France.
Orazbayeva has appeared at such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, HAU2 in Berlin, and the Reykjavik Arts Academy. She has given solo recitals on Radio France and BBC Radio 3, and she appeared at the Gagosian Gallery in London in conjunction with an exhibition of works by artist Richard Serra. Orazbayeva released her debut album Outside on the Nonclassical label in 2011, gaining critical notice for her performances of Salvatore Sciarrino’s difficult modern Caprices. She has collaborated with composers Peter Zinovieff (who wrote the computer-and-violin concerto Our Too for her), and Bryn Harrison, whose Receiving the Approaching Memory she premiered with pianist Mark Knoop, a frequent duet partner; their 2018 recording of Morton Feldman’s For John Cage earned a Diapason d’Or award in France. She also performed with the Plus-Minus Ensemble chamber group. A composer, Orazbayeva has collaborated on music for the film The Have-Nots and the TV series The Village (BBC) and Tin Star (Sky Atlantic). She is also a playwright. Orazbayeva has released nine albums and EPs, several on the Prah label. She has also performed Baroque music on recordings, releasing the album Telemann: Fantasias in 2016. Orazbayeva moved to ECM New Series in 2021 for the album J.S. Bach: Three or One, on which she was joined by Railton on cello and pianist Fred Thomas. ~ James Manheim