Background
MORDKOVITCH, Lydia was born on April 30, 1944 in Saratov, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. Daughter of Mendel and Golda Shtimerman.
MORDKOVITCH, Lydia was born on April 30, 1944 in Saratov, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. Daughter of Mendel and Golda Shtimerman.
In 1960, she moved to Odessa, where she studied at the Stolyarsky School of Music until 1962. She then moved to Moscow where she studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory under David Oistrakh, later serving as his assistant from 1968 to 1970. Between 1970-1973, she studied at the Institute of Arts.
She taught at the Israeli Academy of Music in Jerusalem from 1974-1979, when she made her first appearance in the United Kingdom with the Hallé Orchestra. She settled permanently in the United Kingdom in 1980. Her marriage ended during this period.
Her United States debut was in 1982 with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Mordkovitch signed a recording contract with Chandos in 1980, after the company Radio Corporation of America, with which she had previously had a contract, went bankrupt. Her Chandos debut recording contained sonatas by composers such as Prokofiev, Schumann, and Richard Strauss.
She was featured in over 60 recordings for Chandos, inclulding works of J.S. Bach, Ami Maayani, Shostakovich and English composers such as Bax, Alwyn, Bliss, Howells, and John Veale. She made numerous recordings with the conductor Neeme Järvi but plans to record the long awaited Tchaicovsky Concerto were not realised.
Mordkovitch became a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1995 as a specialist in Russian music
Mordkovitch died of cancer in London on 9 December 2014, aged 70.
Married 1st Leonid Mordkovitch in 1962 (divorced), one daughter. Married 2nd Malkia Chayoth in 1977 (divorced.