Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This channel started with collecting rare recordings from the Golden Age: Kreisler, Heifetz, Seidel, Cortot, Szeryng, and many more. They taught me to play and to listen. After so many explorations in different directions, it's still what I come back to...still what turns up in my own playing and in what I try to hand to my students. So, this interview with Dima Sitkovetsky was a personal one.
Dima grew up inside the tradition the rest of us reconstruct from records. Oistrakh, Kogan and Yankelevich were on the jury the day he entered the Moscow Conservatory. Menuhin heard him play when he was eight, and thirty years later conducted his Elgar recording. We met at the Shkolnikova Academy in France (https://www.shkolnikovaacademy.com) and talked about his incredible life, about hopeful things, and about depressing things. He remains a keeper of the flame, and I strive to be as well.
🔥 Check out DIMA'S PODCAST: "KEEPING THE FLAME"
Soviet Russia in the 1970s, a young violinist from a famous musical family, and the decision to leave. It's a family memoir as much as a music one. His mother Bella Davidovich, his father Julian, the Moscow Conservatory, the émigré years. Dima narrates his story chapter by chapter with the recordings that shaped him as a musician.
Apple Podcasts → podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dmitry-sitkovetsky-keeping-the-flame/id1854819032
Spotify → open.spotify.com/show/0b31keqAKDqPrBgw2LzX1f
(Also on Audible, Pocket Casts, Overcast, Castbox and elsewhere.)
Dmitry's website → dmitrysitkovetsky.com
Dmitry on YouTube → youtube.com/@dmitrysitkovetsky
Dmitry on Instagram → instagram.com/dsitkovetsky
🎻 ARCO — THE APP I BUILT (14:05)
This whole interview is about knowledge going missing. Which is, more or less, why I built Arco. Arco records your lessons, transcribes them with music-specific accuracy, writes rich Lesson Notes, and then lets you actually talk to your entire lesson history. Ask what your teacher has said about your vibrato over the past year. Pull an audition practice plan out of six months of lessons. Cross-reference your teacher's approach against Galamian, Flesch, Neuhaus.
Free to start, no credit card. iPhone, iPad, and desktop web.
→ https://arco.app
→ App Store: apps.apple.com/us/app/arco-ai/id6757969709
❤️ SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL
Conversations like this one take travel, gear, and a lot of editing, and Patreon is what makes them possible.
→ patreon.com/artiststechnique
CHAPTERS
00:00 The Golden Age, in 30 seconds
00:34 Who is Dima Sitkovetsky?
01:19 Growing up on Mount Olympus
02:49 The curiosity problem
05:04 A sound you know in five seconds
07:06 Why everyone sounds the same now
08:48 Keepers of the flame
09:52 Is classical music ending?
11:05 The case for a revival
12:20 Competitions and clubs
14:05 A word about Arco
15:40 Talents borrow, geniuses steal
18:11 Yehudi Menuhin
19:25 The Elgar, and a musical clown
21:54 Stern, Milstein, and purity
23:32 His father, Julian Sitkovetsky
26:11 Dynasties and rivalry
28:01 The trouble with careers
33:30 The art of transcription
37:00 Because of Bach
39:25 PERFORMANCE
Rimsky-Korsakov / Zimbalist: Le Coq d'or Fantasy
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, violin · Pavel Gililov, piano
40:26 Do something of quality
Recorded at the Nelli Shkolnikova Academy, at the Château de la Flocellière in Sèvremont, France.
#violin #heifetz #kreisler #menuhin #classicalmusic #sitkovetsky #kurganov
This channel started with collecting rare recordings from the Golden Age: Kreisler, Heifetz, Seidel, Cortot, Szeryng, and many more. They taught me to play and to listen. After so many explorations in different directions, it's still what I come back to...still what turns up in my own playing and in what I try to hand to my students. So, this interview with Dima Sitkovetsky was a personal one.
Dima grew up inside the tradition the rest of us reconstruct from records. Oistrakh, Kogan and Yankelevich were on the jury the day he entered the Moscow Conservatory. Menuhin heard him play when he was eight, and thirty years later conducted his Elgar recording. We met at the Shkolnikova Academy in France (https://www.shkolnikovaacademy.com) and talked about his incredible life, about hopeful things, and about depressing things. He remains a keeper of the flame, and I strive to be as well.
🔥 Check out DIMA'S PODCAST: "KEEPING THE FLAME"
Soviet Russia in the 1970s, a young violinist from a famous musical family, and the decision to leave. It's a family memoir as much as a music one. His mother Bella Davidovich, his father Julian, the Moscow Conservatory, the émigré years. Dima narrates his story chapter by chapter with the recordings that shaped him as a musician.
Apple Podcasts → podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dmitry-sitkovetsky-keeping-the-flame/id1854819032
Spotify → open.spotify.com/show/0b31keqAKDqPrBgw2LzX1f
(Also on Audible, Pocket Casts, Overcast, Castbox and elsewhere.)
Dmitry's website → dmitrysitkovetsky.com
Dmitry on YouTube → youtube.com/@dmitrysitkovetsky
Dmitry on Instagram → instagram.com/dsitkovetsky
🎻 ARCO — THE APP I BUILT (14:05)
This whole interview is about knowledge going missing. Which is, more or less, why I built Arco. Arco records your lessons, transcribes them with music-specific accuracy, writes rich Lesson Notes, and then lets you actually talk to your entire lesson history. Ask what your teacher has said about your vibrato over the past year. Pull an audition practice plan out of six months of lessons. Cross-reference your teacher's approach against Galamian, Flesch, Neuhaus.
Free to start, no credit card. iPhone, iPad, and desktop web.
→ https://arco.app
→ App Store: apps.apple.com/us/app/arco-ai/id6757969709
❤️ SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL
Conversations like this one take travel, gear, and a lot of editing, and Patreon is what makes them possible.
→ patreon.com/artiststechnique
CHAPTERS
00:00 The Golden Age, in 30 seconds
00:34 Who is Dima Sitkovetsky?
01:19 Growing up on Mount Olympus
02:49 The curiosity problem
05:04 A sound you know in five seconds
07:06 Why everyone sounds the same now
08:48 Keepers of the flame
09:52 Is classical music ending?
11:05 The case for a revival
12:20 Competitions and clubs
14:05 A word about Arco
15:40 Talents borrow, geniuses steal
18:11 Yehudi Menuhin
19:25 The Elgar, and a musical clown
21:54 Stern, Milstein, and purity
23:32 His father, Julian Sitkovetsky
26:11 Dynasties and rivalry
28:01 The trouble with careers
33:30 The art of transcription
37:00 Because of Bach
39:25 PERFORMANCE
Rimsky-Korsakov / Zimbalist: Le Coq d'or Fantasy
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, violin · Pavel Gililov, piano
40:26 Do something of quality
Recorded at the Nelli Shkolnikova Academy, at the Château de la Flocellière in Sèvremont, France.
#violin #heifetz #kreisler #menuhin #classicalmusic #sitkovetsky #kurganov
