IRINA ZINGG
“It is great to do what you love but greater with the great team.”
– Lailah Gifty Akita
With strong belief that Excellence, Sharing and mutual Support are the fundamental values for the succefull career’ development of any Artist, Irina Zingg founded the HarpMasters in 2006.
Vision, talent, dedication, enthusiasm, and energy have granted the Russian-Swiss harpist Irina Zingg international recognition and appreciation. Dr. Irina Zingg is Professor of Harp at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milano and Founder and Artistic Director of the HarpMasters Academy & Festival.
Born in Moscow, she holds a degree with honors from Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory and studied with professors Milda Agazarian and Olga Erdely. Her performing career began in Moscow in the early 1990s as principal harpist with the International Harp Duo Ailos Harp. After the fall of the Soviet Walls, her career took an international emphasis: while living in the Middle East, she premiered new music, lectured for cultural foundations, and founded the school educational program “Harp and More”. Furthermore, she initiated a highly acclaimed chamber music project “Homage to Feiruz”, whereby she explored groundbreaking dimensions of the harp in the context of oriental music. The harpist has solo and chamber CD albums to her credit.
In her passionate and long-standing commitment to furthering the harp today, in 2006 Irina Zingg founded the worldwide recognized HarpMasters – Academy, Festspiele, Edition, and HM On the Road – which serves today as a significant liaison between generations of harpists while gathering, preserving and developing the international harp traditions.
Sought-after internationally appreciated pedagogue, Irina Zingg teaches regular seminars and workshops worldwide and was a guest professor at Düsseldorf Hochschule der Künste, Royal College of Music in London, Conservatorio di Musica di Torino, Fiesole Scuola di Musica, Curtis Institute of Music, among others.
Dr. Zingg is a scholar and lecturer. She holds a Doctorate from the Gnessin Music Academy Moscow (Ph.D. thesis “Harp Treatises of the second half of the 18th–first quarter of the 19th centuries: Establishment of Professional Performance” (2020)) and is the author of numerous articles, forewords, as well as lectures on the Russian Harp History.
She has served on the jury panels of national and international harp competitions (among them – USA International Harp Competition, Israel International Harp Contest, and contests in Italy, Slovenia, Korea, Russia, Mexico, and Serbia). Her students have won over 20 prizes in international harp competitions in Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Spain and have developed successful careers as performers and teachers. Being a dedicated professional, Irina Zingg continuously serves the harp community: she is the Founding Member of the Association of Russian Harp Teachers International, has served as a Board Member of the Moscow Cultural Foundation, and as a Correspondent for the World Harp Congress Review.