Ivan Karizna was born into a family of musicians. He started learning music at the age of 5, and at a little over 7 he began taking cello classes from Vladimir Perlin, the famous teacher and a Belarus Artist of Honour.

 

Ivan Karizna is laureate of about 10 International Competitions, he has played at different venues in Belarus, Russia, Belgium, the UK, France, the USA, the Netherlands, Portugal, Bulgaria, Bahrain, and Lithuania, including such famous concert halls as the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Salle Pleyel and Cite de la Musique (Paris), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), and others. He has taken part in international festivals: Musica Mundi (Belgium), Festival International de Colmar (France), “Moscow Welcomes Friends” (Russia), and the Yuri Bashmet International

Music Festival (Belarus). He has played as a soloist with such orchestras as Moscow Virtuosi (conductor Vladimir Spivakov), the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra (conductor Valery Gergiev), the Porto National Orchestra (conductor James Judd), the Academic Symphony Orchestra of theSaint Petersburg Philharmonic Society (conductor Alexander Dmitriev), the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia (conductor Ion Marin), Strasbourg Philarmonic orchestra (conductor Ivan Meyelmans), Slovenian Radio Symphony Orchestra (conductor Mihail Yurowsky), Musica Viva (conductor Alexander Rudin), the symphony orchestras of the Nizhny Novgorod and Belarus State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra and others.

 

Ivan represented his country at the Eurovision Young Musicians, a classical music competition, where he competed in the finals.

 

Ivan played chamber music with such great artists as Eliane Reyes, Itamar Golan, Ivry Gitlis, Dong-Suk Kang, Yuri Bashmet, Christian Tezlaff, Jerome Ducros, etc.

 

He was awarded a stipend and a grand prize by the Belarus President’s Special Fund for Talented Youths. He also has a stipend and a grant from the Vladimir Spivakov International Charitable Foundation.

 

Ivan is graduated from Conservatoire National de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

 

In a past few years he has become a laureate of prestigious foundation Banque Populaire in France, Third prize Winner at the Fourteenth International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, 1st prize winner of  International Suggia Prize in Porto, Portugal and 1st prize winner of International Umanitaria Competition in Milan, Italy.