As a soloist and chamber musician Alexander Ivashkin has performed in more than forty countries. He is a regular guest at many important music festivals in Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and has performed as soloist with leading orchestras all over the world. He has performed at major venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall, London, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Philharmonic Hall, Berlin, Philharmonic Hall, Cologne, Musikhalle, Hamburg, Dvorák Hall, Prague, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, St Petersburg Philharmonic Hall and Vredenburg, Utrecht. He is one of three cellists, the others being Mstislav Rostropovich and Natalia Gutman, for whom Alfred Schnittke composed works for cello, and he has actively collaborated with numerous leading contemporary composers. He has recorded the complete works for cello by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, Schnittke, Roslavets, Kancheli and Tcherepnin, and in October 2004 gave the world premiere of the original version of Brahms’ Double Violin Concerto in Hamburg, followed by further performances in various countries. A Professor of Music and Head of Performance Studies at the University of London, Alexander Ivashkin is also Artistic Director of annual chamber music festivals in the city and of the Adam International Cello Festival and Competition, as well as being a teacher at summer schools worldwide. He is well known as a conductor, conducting orchestras and choruses in Great Britain, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Armenia and Azerbajan, and has published several books, on Schnittke, Ives, Penderecki, Rostropovich and others, and more than 200 articles in Russia, Germany, Italy, US, UK and Japan.