Alissa Firsova

Alissa Firsova, together with her composer parents, fled Moscow to London in 1991, where she enjoyed her musical studies at the Purcell School and Royal Academy of Music. As a solo pianist she made her Wigmore Hall and Proms debuts in 2009 and as a chamber musician works regularly with David Cohen, Daniel Rowland, Camerata RCO, Tim Hugh, Andrew Marriner, Mark Padmore and many others. 

 

Since winning the BBC Proms Young Composer Competition in 2001, she received three commissions for the Proms, writing for the Royal Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Southbank Sinfonia together with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. Her music was also performed by the NTO Mannheim, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Barcelona, Houston and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, Britten Sinfonia, Netherlands Blazer Ensemble, Dante, Tippett and Navarra quartets, Henning Kraggerud, Imogen Cooper and conductors, Andrew Litton, Mark Wigglesworth, Alexander Soddy, Leo McFall, Jessica Cottis and Gemma New, to name a few.

Alissa recorded her debut solo piano (Russian Émigrés) and composer portrait (Fantasy) CD's on Vivat and her Stabat Mater, recorded by The Sixteen, was featured in Gramophone's Top 10 Compositions by Women. Her recital for the Amsterdam Piano Series, including her transcription of Mahler's Adagietto, was released on Vinyl by Gutman Records in 2020. She enjoyed her triple debut with the English Chamber Orchestra as conductor, composer and pianist in 2013 in the Cadogan Hall and became Artistic Director of the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival in 2019. 

Further conducting work included appearances with the Camerata RCO in her Le Soleil de Conques op. 33 in Conques Festival in 2015 and for the Union Musicale series in Turin in 2016, as well as her mother, Elena Firsova's Chamber Violin Concerto with Daniel Rowland at his Stift Festival in 2021. In 2020 she play-conducted an all-Beethoven programme with the Cheltenham Chamber Orchestra.

 

In July 2023, Alissa's symphony, Spell of Creation, was commissioned and premiered at Manchester Festival by BBC Phil with contralto, Jess Dandy. She recently has enjoyed further collaborations with the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra as pianist, composer and conductor, as well as chamber music concerts in Bavaria and the Algarve and residencies in festivals in Buxton and Lessines.

Most recently, in Autumn 2025 she returned to the Amsterdam Piano Series at the Concertgebouw with a Rachmaninoff Feast, including the Op. 23 Preludes and the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata with David Cohen, which will be released live for Gutman Records. She gave a composer portrait concert of Joseph Haas in Munich, which she also recorded for ARS Productions annd she gave a concert with violinist, Ludmila Pavlová in Chemnitz for the European City of Culture Festival. In June 2026, her Bergen's Bonfire will have it's German premiere in Brandenburg, conducted by Wagnerian conductor, Sebastian Weigle.