Bio
Mariia Rusalimova is a young Ukrainian-born violinist based in Berlin, Germany.
Mariia regularly performs with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, and the Berlin Chamber Orchestra. Before relocating to Germany, she held a permanent position with the Dnipro Chamber Orchestra.
She has appeared on some of the world’s most prestigious stages, including the Musikverein Wien, Berliner Philharmonie, Palau de les Arts in Barcelona, and Casino Basel, and has participated in festivals across Ukraine, Germany, Spain, Italy, Finland, and Switzerland. Among them are the Rheingau Festival, Music Without Limits, Musik:Landschaft Westfalen, Festival der Neuen Bach-Gesellschaft, Elba Isola Musicale d’Europa, and the Fiskars Festival. Mariia has performed alongside distinguished musicians such as Guy Braunstein, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Kim Barbier, Denis Severin, Anton Barachovsky, David Geringas, Nicolas Altstaedt, and Dmytro Udovychenko.
Mariia is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Solo Performance at the University of Münster, Germany, in the studio of Prof. Giovanni Guzzo. She completed her Bachelor’s degree there in 2025, graduating summa cum laude under the guidance of Prof. Martin Dehning.
She has received further important musical inspiration from Boris Garlitsky, Ulrike Titze, Peter Rainer, and Anatoly Bazhenov, as well as through participation in the Lead! Project, a mentoring program for the next generation of orchestra leaders.
As a soloist, Mariia has performed with the Dnipro Chamber Orchestra, the Mariupol Philharmonic, the Zaporizhzhia Chamber Orchestra, and the Zaporizhzhia State Symphony Orchestra.
In recent years, she has been a prizewinner at the Dnipro International Violin Competition, the Ukrainian National Violin Competition, and the Goldene Pektoral Award. She was also distinguished with the H. Logvin Scholarship. Mariia is supported by the Vere Music Fund’s grant program for emerging artists and is a recipient of the ProTalent Scholarship and the national Deutschlandstipendium, awarded by the University of Münster.
In her free time, Mariia is dedicated to volunteering and supporting war refugees from her native Ukraine. She is one of the initiators of UAmusicDE, a platform supporting Ukrainian musicians who were forced to leave their homes as a result of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Over the past years, Mariia has been entrusted with several important instruments, including violins by Tomaso Eberle (Naples, 1780) and Domenico Montagnana (Venice, c. 1730). She currently performs on a violin ascribed to Paolo Maggini (Brescia, c. 1600), generously loaned by an anonymous donor.