Sofia Kiprskaya was born in Leningrad and began to study music at the age of five. She graduated from the St Petersburg State Conservatory, later completed a postgraduate study there (class of Anna Makarova), also trained at the Prague Conservatory and graduated from the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles (class of Jana Boušková). Since 2008 she has been Solo Harp with the Mariinsky Orchestra, since 2011 leader of the harp group.
Prize-winner at the Félix Godefroid International Harp Competition (Namur, Belgium; 1st prize and special Coq d’argent award), the Lily Laskine International Harp Competition (Deauville, France; 2nd prize), the Franz Josef Reinl Stiftung Harp Contest (Munich; 1st prize), the St Petersburg International Empress Elizabeth Petrovna Golden Harp Music Competition (1st prize and special award for the best performance of a work by Tchaikovsky) and the Martine Géliot International Harp Competition (Paris, 1st prize and special award from the jury chairman, composer Jacques Charpentier) among many other music competitions. Following her win at the Martine Géliot Competition she recorded the solo CD Recital in Paris.
Prize-winner at the competition A Galaxy of Talents and recipient of the Academician Dmitry Likhachev Star as well of the Yuri Temirkanov Prize, the Union of Concert Workers of the Russian Federation Prize and the Hope of Russia and Young Talents prizes. In 2023 she was awarded Moscow Chekhov Art Theatre Prize in the Classical Music nomination.
Kiprskaya is a recipient of the Russian Presidential Prize for young cultural figures for 2021.
Sofia Kiprskaya has taken part in the European Harp Congress in Lyon and Cardiff and represented Russia at the World Harp Congress in Amsterdam and Sydney. Has presented solo programmes at the festivals Virtuosi of the Planet, Stars of the White Nights, Musical Olympus, Crescendo, Stars on Baikal, Palaces of St Petersburg, A Musical Expedition, festivals in Mikkeli (Finland) and Santander (Spain), the International Harp Festival (Sōka, Japan) and the Forte Music Fest (Almaty). Has given concerts at major venues in Japan, Australia, France, Serbia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and the USA, among them New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Salle Fontainebleau, Prague’s Rudolfinium, Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre, the Grand and Small Halls of the St Petersburg Philharmonia and the Great and Small Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, Zaryadye Hall and Novaya Opera theatre (Moscow), National Philharmonic of Ukraine, Luhansk Philharmonic, Belarusian State Philharmonic (Minsk).
Has collaborated with the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, the MÁV Symphony Orchestra (Budapest), the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and other ensembles. Together with the Mariinsky Orchestra she has featured in the recording of a large number of CDs. She also worked with Valery Gergiev, Andris Nelsons, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Alexander Sladkovsky, Alexander Knyazev, Nikolai Znajder, Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici, Julien Beaudiment, Walter Auer, Boris Andrianov, Valentin Uryupin, Karol Mossakowski, Arman Murzagaliev, Péter Csaba, Péter Eötvös, Utrecht String Quartet and other prominent musicians.
In collaboration with the Russian Institute of the History of the Arts, Sofia Kiprskaya has released two albums of music from the times of Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna. She presented the first St Petersburg performances of Rodion Shchedrin’s Concerto dolce, Valery Kikta’s Scottish Rhapsody and Jacques Charpentier’s La Danse devant l’arche. In 2024 she recorded Nikolai Parfenov and Sergei Vasilenko harp concertos for a CD marking the 150th anniversary of the Moscow Conservatory harp class. These works, dedicated to Xenia Erdeli and Vera Dulova, have not been performed for many years before.
Holds masterclasses at the Mariinsky Theatre, with the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra and at the Central Music School – Academy of Performing Art in Moscow, as well as in Belarus, Japan and China. She is a jury member of several harp competitions and since 2019 has been member of the World Harp Congress Directory.
Founder of the International Harp Festival Northern Lyre at the Mariinsky Theatre, which was established in 2017; the festival takes place each year and features internationally acclaimed musicians.
She is actively involved in concerts for charity.
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