Nicola Lisle talks to Maxim Vengerov ahead of his show at the Sheldonian

Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov was just 12 when he first came to Oxford, enjoying a short stay in the city before going off to study at the Royal Academy of Music.

Nearly 30 years later he is back, this time as the first artist-in-residence with Oxford Philomusica — and he is absolutely delighted. “It is a big honour for me, but also quite a responsibility,” he says. “Oxford is such an important place, even in Russia. It is so well known as a great place of learning. “When I met Marios Papadopoulos there was immediately a great rapport, and a chemistry with him and the orchestra. It felt natural and in harmony from the beginning, so it was easy to accept this invitation.”

Maxim was the only child of musical parents; his mother conducted a 500-voice children’s choir, while his father played the oboe. As a youngster he often accompanied his mother to choir rehearsals, and formed an early love of conducting.

He started playing the violin at the age of five, and by the age of ten was already winning international competitions and being offered professional engagements.

The forthcoming Oxford concert will see Maxim displaying his skills as both violinist and conductor. First he will play in Brahms’ technically dazzling Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.77, with Marios Papadopoulos conducting, then he will take over baton duties for Mendelssohn’s hauntingly evocative Symphony No.3 in A Minor, best known as the Scottish Symphony.

Both pieces hold fond memories for Maxim. “The Brahms I first played with the BBC Orchestra in Manchester, I think, when I was about 17. Then I recorded it with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Phil, and again later with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when I was about 25. But in the years since then I have matured, and also I have started conducting and it feels very different as a conductor. You have quite different emotions as a violinist and a conductor. I now perceive it from the perspective of every instrument, not just the violin. So I am very pleased to have come back to this work and to be playing it in Oxford.”

The Scottish Symphony takes Maxim back to when he was 16, and had recently decided to part with his teacher, Zakhar Bron. “I felt I needed to engage with music in a different way,” he explains. “I would buy a score and analyse it, and buy ten or more recordings and compare different perceptions of the same work and then gradually come to an opinion of my own. Mendelssohn’s Scottish is the first work I did this with. I would listen to it 20 or more times a day. It brought out so many emotions and is so special for me.”

A recording of both pieces with Oxford Philomusica is in the pipeline, with a CD due to be released on Maxim’s own MVM label in early 2015. The Oxford concert will also feature the world premiere of Rachel Lockwood’s Fantasia on an Original Theme, commissioned for the Oxford Philomusica’s 15th anniversary.

Maxim Vengerov/ Oxford Philomusica
Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford
Saturday, May 3, at 7.30pm
Tickets: 01865 980980 or visit oxfordphil.com