Having first studied piano with Rögnvaldur Sigurjónsson at the Reykjavík Music School, and after completing his musical studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, with Sulamita Aronovsky, Vovka Ashkenazy, who is of Russian and Icelandic parentage, made his debut in London at the Barbican Centre in 1983 with the London Symphony Orchestra under Richard Hickox, with whom he performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
Since then, his career has taken him all across Europe, and to Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Americas. He has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, as well as the Edinburgh and Spoleto Festivals.
Vovka Ashkenazy is very active as a chamber musician and has recorded a CD of Italian music with his brother, the clarinetist Dimitri Ashkenazy, together with whom he has toured Japan several times. He has also worked together with the Reykjavík Wind Quintet, and has recorded two CDs with the ensemble. In 2005 he started performing and recording regularly with Vladimir Ashkenazy on two pianos, and they have since toured Japan, China and the Far East a number of times, and recorded three two-piano CDs for Decca, in addition to the two CDs recorded for the same company prior to the year 2000.
Now he devotes most of his time to teaching, and has given masterclasses in Australia, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US. He was professor at the Conservatoire Gabriel Fauré de GrandAngoulême in France (1998-2007). He joined the piano teaching staff at the Imola International Piano Academy in 2014, and has teaching posts at the Conservatory of Italian Switzerland in Lugano, Kalaidos Musikhochschule in Zürich, and the Tiziano Rossetti International Music Academy in Lugano.
He was appointed artistic director of the Rina Sala Gallo International Piano Competition in 2014 and, since 2012, has been on piano competition juries in China, England, France, Italy, Serbia, South Korea, and Switzerland.
