Sergey Malov is a musician who seeks the coexistence of depth and freedom in his repertoire and brings it to life on stage like no other: he has been performing internationally for years as a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and conductor, and is appreciated not only for his brilliant technique on the violin, viola, and cello da spalla. His tireless dedication and impressive versatility—with a repertoire ranging from early Baroque music through J. S. Bach, Classical and Romantic solo concertos, to world premieres of contemporary music—are appreciated by audiences and critics alike.
The artist, who hails from St. Petersburg and has Hungarian roots, engages intensively with questions of style, playing techniques, and the ethnological origins of the respective eras in order to develop his interpretations and program concepts. For him, historically informed performance practice extends from the Baroque to the present day, as he incorporates an electric violin and a loop station alongside his string instruments to create new sonic worlds.
A prize winner at numerous international competitions—the Paganini Competition in Genoa, the Mozart Competition in Salzburg, the Heifetz Competition in Vilnius, the Michael Hill Competition in Auckland, the ARD Competition in Munich, and the Tokyo Viola Competition—and uniquely so on three instruments, he has set himself the goal of passing on his knowledge and skills to the next generation of musicians as well as to interested people outside the concert hall. Since September 2017, Sergey Malov has also served as a professor of violin at the Zurich University of the Arts.
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Sergey Malov’s constant musical curiosity also led him to the violoncello da spalla, an instrument that had long been forgotten, for which Johann Sebastian Bach presumably composed his six cello suites and which he himself played. Today, Sergey Malov is one of the very few masters on this cello, which is played on the shoulder. This setup gives the multi-instrumentalist a unique versatility that allows him to incorporate all three instruments violin, viola, and cello da spalla—into his programs, both in chamber music settings and with orchestras.
As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. A special concert invitation brought Sergey Malov to the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, where he performed Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with Klaus Mäkelä on the composer’s birthday.
Whether as a soloist or chamber musician, Sergey Malov is a welcome guest at international festivals such as the Innsbruck Festival, the Kissinger Sommer, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the Nelson Music Festival in New Zealand. As a conductor, he collaborates regularly with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, and the Augsburg Philharmonic. During the 2025–26 season, he served as Artist in Residence with the Hamburger Camerata. The 2026–27 season features a wide variety of orchestral projects: Among others, Sergey Malov will perform with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, the Haifa Symphony, the Kammerakademie Ingolstadt, and the Istanbul State Orchestra, as well as the Real Filharmonía de Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, the Antalya State Symphony Orchestra, the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra in Tel Aviv; festival invitations will take him to the Brugg Festival, the Crans Montana Classics, and the Leipzig Bach Festival, among others.
Sergey Malov’s recordings—including works by J. S. Bach, Paganini, and Ysaÿe—have been released on DECCA, Alba, Pan Classics, and Solo Musica, and some were recorded on original instruments from the time of Mozart and Bach. In the fall of 2021, his recording of J. S. Bach’s Six Cello Suites was awarded an OPUS Klassik. Also released in the fall of 2021 on Solo Musica were Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices. In his latest release, “Bach—300 Years of Solitude,” on EuroArts/Warner Classics, he focuses on J. S. Bach’s three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin.
