Biography
Born in 1991 in Bucharest, Romania, Sorin Spasinovici started his adventure through the musical world at the age of 5 when he was introduced to the lovely sounds of the cello by his brother, Mladen Spasinovici, (now the 1st principal cellist at the Bucharest National Opera House) who was back then studying at the "George Enescu" High School of Music. He also introduced Sorin the musical notes on the staff as well as on the piano. Therefore, having this strong influence, Sorin was determined at the age of 7 to start studying at the same music school as his brother. He started with the violin with prof. Mihaela Mailat, showing great talent and ease, this being confirmed after just 2 years when he went to his first competition, the National Music Competition (Olimpiada Nationala) where he won the 2nd prize. Similar prizes followed in the coming years at the same competition as well as at the "Garabet Avachian" Music Competition.
At the age of 14 he discovered the deep and warm sound of the viola and decided to make the move of his lifetime, so starting from his 8th grade he went to the viola class of prof. Ph. D. Camelia Voda. His bond with the new instrument was natural and getting stronger and stronger with time. He won several prizes including the 1st prize at the "George Georgescu" International Competition in 2006 and 2010 and the 2nd prize at the National Music Competition in 2008.
He continued his studies at the National University of Music in his hometown at the viola class of prof. Ph. D. Marian Movileanu. That same year he won an audition for viola substitutes at the National Opera House being at the time the youngest player in the orchestra (20 years-old). One year later, he became a member of the Romanian Youth Orchestra. 2013 came with 2 professional achievements: he became a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) and won an audition for a permanent tutti job in the National Opera House. These two orchestras have brought him enormous professional experience, with the first one playing for four years together with the best young musicians in Europe under the baton of conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vasily Petrenko and Gianandrea Noseda, with soloists such as Isabelle Faust, Gautier Capuçon, Angela Gheorghiu, Alisa Weilerstein and Simon Trpceski and playing in halls such as Konzerthaus Berlin, Royal Albert Hall London or Concertgebouw Amsterdam just to name a few. In 2014, EUYO co-awarded him the Lionel Bryer Memorial Fund Award and in 2017 invited Sorin to join the Summer Tour as principal viola.
At the Opera House in Bucharest he played a consistent amount of operas and ballets by W.A. Mozart, G. Verdi, R. Wagner, P. Tchaikovsky, G. Puccini, L. Minkus.
After successfully finishing his Bachelor's Degree at the National University of Music in Bucharest, he moved to Zürich, Switzerland where he started his Master's Degree in Music Performance at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste at the class of prof. Nicolas Corti. During his entire second semester, he held a temporary tutti job in the St. Gallen Sinfonieorchester. The following year he won an audition for an internship at the Musikkollegium Winterthur Orchestra. The internship, meant for one year, was extended for one more year because of Sorin's well-appreciated musicianship.
During his first master in Zürich he started fulfilling another passion of him: teaching. Therefore, since 2016 he has been constantly giving private violin and viola lessons on Classical music as well as on Balkan music. And since this passion needed thoroughgoing study, he started in 2018 his second master in Music Pedagogy at the same Zürich school with prof. Franziska Frick. He fulfilled 2 internships - with prof. Verena Zeller at the Musikschule Zürcher Oberland and with prof. Dominique Polich at the Musikschule Schenkenbergertal and finished his Master Degree in 2020. He is at the moment also a viola substitute of the Musikkollegium Winterthur.
In 2019, Sorin joined the National Symphony Orchestra of Romania (NSOR) as its principal viola in a tour throughout the United States of America. Conducted by Cristian Macelaru, the orchestra played in Miami, New York, Detroit, New Jersey and Philadelphia and featured Andrei Ionita and Wynton Marsalis as soloists. With the latter, the NSOR played together with the Jazz at Lincoln Center band in a unique Classical-Jazz project that took place in the Rose Theater in New York.
Between October 2020 and March 2021, he worked as substituting teacher at the Kantonsschule Hohe Promenade in Zurich where he taught violin and viola. In 2020 he has also been appointed tutor of the string pupils at the Music Camps organized by the Prova Musikschule in Winterthur.
Since November 2021, he is the conductor of the string ensemble of the Prova Musikschule in Winterthur.
Sorin's latest most notable concert performances include a concert in 2021 at the Festival da Jazz St. Moritz with the famous Swiss musician Andreas Vollenweider, of whose band he has become a member that year, and a collaboration with the great concert pianist Simon Trpčeski with whom Sorin performed in 2021 and 2022 at the music festival in Maribor, Slovenia and in 2022 at the Wigmore Hall in London, UK. Together with Simon Trpceski and Gjorgi Dimcevski on violin, Alexander Somov on cello, Hidan Mamudov on clarinet and Vlatko Nušev on percussion, they recorded and released in 2023 the "Friendship" album at Lynn Records. The album features music by Brahms, Shahov and Connesson.
Sorin also performed recently as a soloist with local Swiss orchestras, namely with La Folia Orchestra in 2022 and Wallisellen Orchestra in 2023.
Besides playing, studying and teaching, Sorin loves arranging different musical pieces for different ensembles. Since he was 19 he has been constantly arranging music from different genres such as Classical, Pop and Folk to different kinds of ensembles, from duos to quintets comprising various kinds of instruments, especially for groups with which he has been playing. Trio Solaire is one of these groups comprising him with the viola, Roxana Popescu with the flute and Leonor Maia with the harp. The group was founded in 2016 in Zürich and has been giving concerts in various cities in Switzerland as well as in Bucharest at the Romanian Athenaeum. Another group for which he arranged almost the entire repertoire is the I Quattro Alti viola quartet. Founded in 2017 and comprising of Sorin, Theodor Andreescu, Michael Carol Mai Antal and Iulian Popovici, I Quattro Alti had already several concerts throughout Romania.
Last but not least, Sorin Spasinovici loves listening and performing Romanian Folk Music, especially a special branch of it called "muzica lautareasca". With time, he got to master this demanding musical style playing it with maximum professionalism and dedication. He is also one of the few available violists in the world who can properly teach it. As a natural consequence, he founded in 2019 The Eastern Quartet, a unique musical group that dribbles between Classical and Balkan music in an original way. The group consists of Sorin, Atanas Marinov with the clarinet, Seraphim von Werra with the accordion and Orhan Remzi with the keyboard/drums. In their short history, The Eastern Quartet already performed several times in Switzerland and Austria. Their repertoire consists of unique arrangements of Classical pieces from composers such as A. Vivaldi, J. Brahms, A. Piazzolla, masterfully blending the Classical strictness with the surprising Balkan rhythms and fantasy.