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Salvatore Accardo made his debut in recital at the age of 13 playing Paganini’s Capricci.Two years later he won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 the Paganini Competition in Genoa.
His repertoire ranges from pre-Bach to post-Berg; composers like Sciarrino, Donatoni, Piston, Piazzolla, Colasanti and Xenakis wrote for him.
In addition to playing with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, Accardo performs in recital and particularly loves chamber music.
In 1992 he founded the Accardo Quartet and in 1986 the Walter Stauffer Academy together with Giuranna, Filippini and Petracchi in Cremona, where they regularly give master classes. In 1971 he founded the Settimane Musicali Internazionali in Naples, where rehearsals were open to the audience, and the Cremona String Festival.
Accardo has also dedicated part of his activities to conducting important European and American Orchestras. He recorded as conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Since 1987 he conducts also opera (Rossini Festival with Ponnelle, Rome Opera House, Monte Carlo Opera, Lille and Naples Opera House).
In 1992 for the 200th anniversary of Rossini’s birth, he conducted in Pesaro Festival and in Rome the first modern edition of the Messa di Gloria (recorded live by Warner Fonit), that did again in 1995 in Vienna with the Wiener Symphoniker.
He recorded for DGG Paganini Capricci and Concertos for violin with Charles Dutoit , for Philips several recordings (Bach Sonatas and Partitas, Max Bruch works for violin and orchestra with Kurt Masur, Čajkovskij, Dvořák and Sibelius Concerts with Colin Davis, Mendelssohn Concert with Charles Dutoit, Brahms and Beethoven Concerts with Kurt Masur). He also recorded for ASV, Dynamic, EMI, Sony Classical, Collins Classic and Foné. Among these recordings are: Beethoven Concerto in D major and 2 Romances with Accademia della Scala Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini for Sony Classical; Brahms Sonatas for violin and piano, Schubert Quartets, Paganini Capricci and Homage to Heifetz and Homage to Kreisler for FONÉ playing the legendary violins from the Cremona collection; for Dynamic Accardo played Paganini’s violin. Recently Foné re-masterised the Mozart Complete works for violin in 13 CDs in high quality technology.
Accardo has been awarded in Italy with Abbiati Prize by the Italian Musical Critics in recognition of the exceptional standard of his playing and interpretation and with the Italian highest honour “Cavaliere di Gran Croce”. In 1996 the Beijing Conservatoire named him “most honourable Professor”, in 1999 he was named”Commandeur dans l’ordre du mérit culturel” in Monaco and in 2002 he received “A Life for the Music” Award, and this year he was awarded by the Kennedy Center of New York with the Gold Medal in the Arts.
In 1996 Accardo recreated the Orchestra da Camera Italiana (OCI), whose members are the best pupils of Cremona “Walter Stauffer Academy” and recorded two CDs with them: The virtuoso violin in Italy and Masterpieces for violin and strings for Warner Fonit Cetra. In 1999 Accardo and OCI recorded the complete Paganini Concerti for violin and orchestra for EMI Classics, the “Concerto per la Costituzione” and in 2003 the complete Astor Piazzolla works for violin in 3 SACDs for Foné.
Accardo and OCI do every year many concerts together especially in Italy, where they play every season for the most important concert Societies and Theaters.
Starting in 2007 he realized until now for Foné the second recording of J. S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the third recording of Paganini’s 24 Capricci (Urtext) and the third recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with OCI (Urtext).
Salvatore Accardo plays a violin Guarneri del Gesù “Reade”- 1734.
Born in Moscow in 1969, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. He made a stunning debut in London in 1988 at the Wigmore Hall and in 1990 won the Gold Medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow where he played with Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman and the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Yuri Temirkanov.
In 1991 Boris Berezovsky made his American debut at Fort Worth in Texas and in France at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris.
Since then, he has performed regularly in recital series and venues worldwide : London, Paris, Rome, Zurich, Munich, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Montréal, Vienna, Bern, Budapest, Prague, Tokyo; Berlin Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Paris Philharmonie, Royal Festival Hall in London, Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels, Konzerthaus in Vienna, Megaron in Athens. In 2006, he was awarded “Best Instrumentalist of the year” by the BBC Music Magazine Awards. 29th November 2016 saw his return to New York Carnegie Hall.
He is also invited to numerous festivals such as the ones of Gstaad, La Roque d’Anthéron, Verbier, Bergamo Brescia, Salzburg, Folle Journée de Nantes and Folle Journée Japan.
He works as concerto soloist with the Orchestre National de France, Royal Concertgebouw, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle, Mariinsky Theatre, Santa Cecilia Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra as well as the symphonic orchestras of Dallas, Bolchoï and Birmingham and the philharmonic orchestras of Berlin, Saint-Petersburg, Los Angeles, New York, Monte-Carlo, Munich, Radio France; with the conductors Antonio Pappano, Yuri Temirkanov, Alexander Vedernikov, Leif Segerstam, Dmitri Kitaenko, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leonard Slatkin, Dimitri Liss and Kurt Masur…
In chamber music, Boris Berezovsky has played with Vadim Repin, Julian Rachlin, Alexandre Gindin, Michael Collins, Henri Demarquette, Michael Guttman, Alexandre Melnikov, Alexander Kniazev and Dmitri Makhtin as well as the Borodine, Britten, Endellion and Takacs quartets. For many years, he was the faithful partner of Brigitte Engerer.
Last season, he performed the concertos of Brahms, Stravinsky, or Beethoven in a format of which he has become fond: concerts with orchestra, without conductor. Mirare released his latest album, recorded with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ without conductor and dedicated to the Brahms and Stravinsky concertos, on 26 January 2018. Following this in November 2018, guest of the Svetlanov Universe Festival, he triumphed with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’, with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. He also achieved the same success in Budapest with the Concerto Budapest in the No. 1 concertos of Brahms, No. 1 of Prokofiev and No. 2 of Shostakovich.
In June 2018, his recital at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées made resounding waves. Resmusica called the pianist “sovereign in everything he touches” and a “discreet artist in relation to some others, but how much higher than many of them.”
2019-20 will see a recital tour of France, featuring performances in Toulouse, Nancy, Annecy and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. He will appear again at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Yuri Temirkanov, and will return to the St Petersburg Philharmonie with the orchestra to perform two Chopin concertos, without conductor. Continuing on in the configuration of concertos without a conductor, he will tour in Spain with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra.
Boris Berezovsky has recorded works by Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Liadov, Tchaïkovsky, Shostakovitch, Medtner, Liszt, Beethoven and Mendelssohn trios alongside Dmitri Makhtin and Alexander Kniazev, for labels including Teldec Classics International, Philips, Mirare, Simax and Warner Classics. Many of these esteemed recordings have received awards from Diapason d’or, Choc de la Musique, Gramophone and Echo Classic.
In 2014 he was appointed Artistic Director of the “Music of the Earth” Festival in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Some musicians are destined to forge artistic paths that will open up new horizons for future generations. Yuri Bashmet is undoubtedly one of them, since it is he that established the viola as a leading instrument on the contemporary concert stage. Born in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don in 1953, Yuri Bashmet studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Vadim Borisovsky and Feodor Druzhinin. On winning first prize in the International Music Competition in Munich, he embarked on an unparalleled world career in 1976. He has performed as a soloist with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de France. Contemporary composers, among them Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edisson Denissow, Mikael Tariverdijev, John Tavener, Giya Kancheli and Alexander Tchaikovsky, have composed and dedicated a total of over 50 works for and to him.
Yuri Bashmet took up the conducting baton in 1982. In 1992, he founded the Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra comprising highly talented young graduates of the Moscow Conservatory. Together, Yuri Bashmet and the soloists of this group became the first Russian ensemble to win a Grammy Award in 2008. Yuri Bashmet has been the artistic director and principal conductor of the New Russia State Symphony Orchestra since 2002. Film and television broadcasters in several different countries have documented his artistic work, and he himself is the creator and host of the TV programme Station of Dreams.
Yuri Bashmet enjoyed a longstanding artistic friendship with Svjatoslav Richter and, following Richter’s death, took over from him as artistic director of the renowned “December Nights” festival in Moscow. Bashmet is also the founder and chairman of the Yuri Bashmet International Viola Competition in Moscow, and likewise founded an international charitable fund, which led to creation of the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize awarded for special artistic achievement. Its winners include Gidon Kremer, Thomas Quasthoff, Viktor Tretjakov, Valery Gergiev, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Olga Borodina, Irina Antonova, Natalja Gutman, Yevgeny Kissin, Maxim Vengerov, Alexei Ratmansky, Yefim Bonfman, Denis Mazuyev and Tan Dun. Further to these achievements, Yuri Bashmet has participated in a great number of important charitable events.
Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud is Artistic Director of the Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. His extraordinary reach as an artist is a result of his versatility and passion for music, as well as the genuine quality to his playing and the beauty of his performances. His teaching and educational writings provide fascinating insights into his multi-faceted approach to music-making, while his composing, arranging and improvising – frequently bringing his own works into the concert hall – recall the spirit of the old masters such as Josef Suk and Eugène Ysaÿe.
In the 18/19 season, Henning is Artist in Residence with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra in Norway and the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland. His eminence as a soloist and play/director have led to invitations time and again to many of the world’s most significant orchestras, most recently the Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Tonkünstler Vienna, BBC Scottish Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony and Macao orchestras. Highlights of the current season include debuts with the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein, Orchestra della Toscana, Royal Danish Opera orchestra and Kuopio Symphony. Henning also returns to Helsingborg Symphony and Vancouver Symphony orchestras and appears with Camerata Salzburg and Janine Jansen at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and on tour in Germany.
Henning is a prolific composer whose works are performed by many prominent musicians and orchestras around the globe. His largest-scale work to date is entitled Equinox: 24 Postludes in All Keys for Violin and String Orchestra. Commissioned, premiered and recorded by the Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra with Henning as soloist, the work was composed as a musical counterpart to a story specially written by world-famous author Jostein Gaarder, and has been hailed as “a fascinating composition to return to over and over again” (MusicWeb International). In 2017, Henning composed a violin/piano version of Equinox, which was premiered in Norway in 2018 with pianist Clare Hammond and Jostein Gaarder narrating.
Henning’s output as a composer also includes Preghiera, commissioned and performed by the Brodsky Quartet in 2012, and The Last Leaf, given its first performance in 2014 by the Britten Sinfonia, as well as cadenzas for two of Haydn’s cello concertos commissioned by Clemens Hagen in 2015 and Victimae Paschali for choir and orchestra commissioned by the Trondheim Chamber Music Festival. In 2017, the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra commissioned and performed Topelius Variations for string orchestra, which Henning performed again later that year in an extensive national tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
With his ever-present spirit of discovery, Henning gave the 21st century premiere of the Johan Halvorsen Violin Concerto with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra at the 2016 Risør Chamber Music Festival. Originally premiered in 1909, the concerto was subsequently considered lost until its re-discovery over 100 years later. Henning went on to play the work with the Oslo and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras, and in 2017 released a recording on the Naxos label with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Bjarte Engeset, leading BBC Radio 3’s Record Review to comment, “It’s difficult to imagine more ardent advocates for this sleeping beauty of a piece”. In the current season, Henning gives the first ever performances of the work in Poland with the Poznan Philharmonic and in Finland with the Kymi Sinfonietta.
Henning regularly performs on both violin and viola at major festivals and venues; recent collaborations have taken place at Wigmore Hall, King’s Place, Bruges Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus and Budapest’s kamara.hu festival, with artists such as Steven Isserlis, Joshua Bell, Lawrence Power, Leif Ove Andsnes, Håvard Gimse, Kathryn Stott, Natalie Clein, Christian Ihle Hadland, Christian Poltéra and Jeremy Menuhin. In the 18/19 season, Henning tours the UK with Adrian Brendel and Imogen Cooper, including a return to Wigmore Hall.
In 2015, Henning became International Chair in Violin at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and in 2017 received a Fellowship. Passionate about musical education, Henning is a Professor at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo, and in 2018 was a jury member at the Menuhin Competition in Geneva, where he also performed the opening concert with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Marin Alsop. This season, he is a jury member at the Leeds Piano Competition.
Henning’s eclectic discography includes many recordings on the Naxos label. His Naxos recording of Mozart Concertos Nos. 3, 4 and 5 with the Norwegian Chamber orchestra included Henning’s own cadenzas, and was awarded an ECHO Klassik Award as well as chosen as Classic FM’s Album of the Week, NDR Kultur’s CD of the Week, Editor’s Choice in Classical Music Magazine, Recommended in The Strad, and featured on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review.
On the Simax label, Henning’s most recent release is a collaboration with the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra and world-famous author Erik Fosnes Hansen. Entitled Between the Seasons, the disc features Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons interspersed with Henning’s own compositions. Also for Simax, Henning has recorded the complete solo sonatas of Ysaÿe, on a disc which won the prestigious Spellemann CD award. On the ACT label, he released a disc entitled Last Spring which explored improvisations on Norwegian folk music with jazz pianist Bugge Wesseltoft. This season, the two artists re-join for a performance at Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic.
Born in Oslo in 1973, Henning studied with Camilla Wicks and Emanuel Hurwitz. He is a recipient of the Grieg Prize, the Ole Bull Prize and the Sibelius Prize.
Henning Kraggerud plays on a 1744 Guarneri del Gesù, provided by Dextra Musica AS. This company is founded by Sparebankstiftelsen DNB.
Born in the United States in 1970, Nicholas Angelich began studying the piano at five with his mother. At the age of seven, he gave his first concert with Mozart’s Concerto K. 467. He entered at 13 the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris where he studied with Aldo Ciccolini, Yvonne Loriod, Michel Beroff and Marie Françoise Bucquet. He won the First Prize for piano and chamber music.
Nicholas Angelich followed master-classes with Leon Fleisher, Dmitri Bashkirov, and Maria Joao Pires. In 1989 he won the Second Prize of the International Piano Competition R. Casadesus in Cleveland and in 1994 the First Prize of the International Piano Competition Gina Bachauer. In 1996 he was invited as a resident of the International Piano Foundation of Cadennabia (Italy). In 2002 he received the “International Klavierfestival Ruhr – Young Talent Award” (Germany) from Leon Fleischer where he performed in June 2003.
He made his debuts in May 2003 with the New-York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur at the Lincoln Center in New-York. Valdimir Jurowski invited him to open with him the 2007/08 season of the Russian National Orchestra in Moscow.
He also performed with the Orchestre National de France under Marc Minkowski and Joseph Pons, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Paavo Järvi, Orchestre National de Lyon and David Robertson, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under Jesus Lopez-Cobos and Kenneth Montgomery, Saint-Petersbourg Symphony under Alexandre Dimitriev, Strasbourg and Montpellier orchestras under Jerzy Semkow, Toulouse Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden in Amsterdam and Yannick Nezet-Sequin in San Sebastian, the Orchestre de chambre de Lausanne and Christian Zacharias, the SWR Baden-Baden orchestra and Michael Gielen, the Francfort Radio orchestra under Hugh Wolff and Paavo Jarvi, the Swiss-Italian Radio Orchestra and Charles Dutoit, the Tonkünstler Orchester and K. Järvi, the Seoul Philharmonic under M.-W. Chung, the London Philharmonic under Kazuchi Ono and Vladimir Jurowsky, as well as recitals in London, Munich, Geneva, Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Rome, Lisbon, Brescia, Tokyo, Paris. He is a regular guest of the Verbier Festival and Martha Argerich’s festival in Lugano.
Recent engagements include concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal and Y. Nezet-Seguin, the Montreal Symphony, Atlanta Symphony (E. Krivine), Seoul Philharmonic (M.-W. Chung), Stuttgart Radio Orchestra and Roger Norrington, a tour with the London Philharmonic under V. Jurowski, and chamber music in North America with R. and G. Capuçon (New-York, San Francisco, Québec, Montréal, Ottawa…). He will make his debuts at the BBC Proms in July 2009 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Y. Nezet-Seguin.
Great interpreter of classic and romantic repertoire, Nicholas Angelich played all Beethoven Sonatas and Liszt’s Années de Pélerinage in different countries. He is also very interested in 20th century music such as Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Chostakovitch, Bartok, Ravel, as well as Messiaen, Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Eric Tanguy and Pierre Henry, who dedicated to him the Concerto for piano without orchestra.
Always enthusiastic about playing chamber music, his partners are Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Maxim Vengerov, Akiko Suwanai, Dimitri Sitkovetsky, Joshua Bell, Julian Rachlin, Gérard Caussé, Alexander Kniazev, Jian Wang, Paul Meyer, the Ysaye, Prazak and Ebène Quartets.
Violinist, violist and conductor Julian Rachlin is one of the most exciting and respected musicians of our time. In the first thirty years of his career, he has performed as soloist with the world’s leading conductors and orchestras. Mr. Rachlin is Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. He also leads the “Julian Rachlin & Friends Festival” in Palma de Mallorca.
Highlights of Mr. Rachlin’s 2018/19 season include performances with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons, Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Christoph Eschenbach, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Juanjo Mena, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck, as well as the KBS Symphony Orchestra and Myung-Whun Chung. Alongside soloist Sarah McElravy and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, he will perform the UK premiere of Penderecki’s Double Concerto for Violin and Viola, which is dedicated to him. Additionally, Mr. Rachlin will conduct among others the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, Essen Philharmonic, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Slovenian Philharmonic, Zagreb Philharmonic and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.
Julian Rachlin’s recent highlights include a residency at the Prague Spring Festival and his own cycle at the Vienna Musikverein. He also performed with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Yuri Temirkanov, Filarmonica della Scala and Riccardo Chailly, Munich Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, Philharmonia Orchestra and Jakub Hrůša, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale and Vladimir Ashkenazy, as well as the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Lahav Shani. As conductor, he toured Europe with the English Chamber Orchestra, and led the Royal Northern Sinfonia across South America and Japan. Additionally, he conducted the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, and made his USA conducting debut at the Grand Teton Music Festival.
In recital and chamber music, Mr. Rachlin performs regularly with Itamar Golan, Denis Kozhukhin, Denis Matsuev, Mischa Maisky, Sarah McElravy, Vilde Frang and Janine Jansen.
Born in Lithuania, Mr. Rachlin immigrated to Vienna in 1978. He studied violin with Boris Kuschnir at the Vienna Conservatory and with Pinchas Zukerman. After winning the “Young Musician of the Year” Award at the Eurovision Competition in 1988, he became the youngest soloist ever to play with the Vienna Philharmonic, debuting under Riccardo Muti. At the recommendation of Mariss Jansons, Mr. Rachlin studied conducting with Sophie Rachlin. Since September 1999, he is on the violin faculty at the Music and Arts University of Vienna. His recordings for Sony Classical, Warner Classics and Deutsche Grammophon have been met with great acclaim. Mr. Rachlin, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, is committed to educational outreach and charity work.
Julian Rachlin plays the 1704 “ex Liebig” Stradivari and a 1785 Lorenzo Storioni viola, on loan to him courtesy of the Dkfm. Angelika Prokopp Privatstiftung. His strings are kindly sponsored by Thomastik-Infeld.
Cellist Leonard Elschenbroich has performed as a soloist with the world’s leading orchestras.
He gave his Vienna Musikverein debut on a European Tour with the Staatskapelle Dresden, his US debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, his Asian debut at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and appeared five times at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms.
A committed performer of contemporary music, Elschenbroich has commissioned several new works from composers including Mark-Anthony Turnage, Luca Lombardi, Arlene Sierra and Suzanne Farrin. He gave the world premiere of Mark Simpson’s first Cello Concerto – written for him – with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at Bridgewater Hall, and Brian Elias’ first Cello Concerto at the BBC Proms.
In 2012 he co-founded the Orquesta Filarmonica de Bolivia, the first orchestra to perform a Mahler Symphony in the nation’s history. Elschenbroich returns to Bolivia on a regular basis to lead educational projects and develop the orchestra. This commitment led Elschenbroich to explore the field of conducting with various orchestras across Latin America and the UK. He gave his London conducting debut, leading The Telegraph to write “Elschenbroich gave a performance of Brahms’ 1st Symphony that at times touched the heights.”
Elschenbroich has worked with a number of eminent conductors including Semyon Bychkov, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Mark Elder, Charles Dutoit, Manfred Honeck, Kirill Karabits, Dmitri Kitajenko, Andrew Litton, Juanjo Mena, Yan-Pascal Tortelier, Vasily Sinasiky, and Edo De Waart. As soloist he has performed with the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Liverpool Phiharmonic, Hallé, Bournemouth Symphony, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, Dresden Staatskapelle, Swedish Radio Symphony, Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic, Residentie Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Pacific Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Elschenbroich’s first three albums for Onyx Classics focused on 20th century Russian repertoire, from Rachmaninov to Schnittke. 2016 saw the release of “Siécle”, a portrait of a century of French music from Saint-Saëns to Dutilleux, recorded with the BBC Scottish Symphony. They have received 5-star reviews from The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Financial Times, as well as receiving Editor’s Choice in Gramophone. This year, after a decade worldwide performances together with Alexei Grynyuk, Onyx Classics released their recording of the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas. The album received wide critical acclaim, including Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Album of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, and is also available on vinyl.
His many awards include the Leonard Bernstein Award, Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk and Borletti Buitoni Trust Award. In 2012 he was named BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, he was Artist-in-Residence of Deutschlandfunk for the 2014-15 season, and Artist-in-Residence at the Philharmonic Society Bremen from 2013-2016.
Born in 1985 in Frankfurt, Elschenbroich received a scholarship, aged ten, to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School in London. He later studied with Frans Helmerson at the Cologne Music Academy.
He plays a cello made by Matteo Goffriller “Ex-Leonard Rose-Ex-Alfredo Piatti’ (Venice, 1693), on private loan.
Born in 1978, Philippe Jaroussky has established himself as the most admired countertenor of his generation, as confirmed by the French ‘Victoires de la Musique’ awards (‘Revelation Artiste Lyrique’ in 2004, ‘Artiste lyrique de l’année’ in 2007 and in 2010, CD of the Year 2009) and multiple Echo Klassik Awards in Germany (2005, 2008, 2011-2012 and 2015).
Jaroussky’s technique allows him the most audacious nuances and impressive pyrotechnics. He has explored a vast Baroque repertoire, from the refinement of the Italian Seicento with Monteverdi, Sances and Rossi, to the staggering brilliance of Handel and Vivaldi arias (singing more music by the latter composer than any other over the last few years). He has worked with renowned period-instrument orchestras such as L’Arpeggiata, Les Arts florissants, Ensemble Matheus, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Le Concert d’Astrée, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie and Europa Galante with conductors including Christina Pluhar, William Christie, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Marc Minkowski, René Jacobs, Jérémie Rhorer, Emmanuelle Haïm, Jean-Claude Malgoire and Fabio Biondi. With pianist Jerôme Ducros, he has looked beyond the Baroque – to fin-de-siècle French song (the album Opium), as well as premiering contemporary vocal music composed for him by Marc-André Dalbavie (Sonnets de Louise Labé, which Jaroussky sang most recently at the 2014 Salzburg Festival).
He has been praised for performances in all the most prestigious concert halls in France (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Théâtre du Châtelet, Salle Pleyel, Salle Gaveau, Opéra de Lyon, Opéra de Montpellier, Opéra de Nancy, Arsenal de Metz, Théâtre de Caen) and abroad (The Barbican Centre and Southbank Cente in London, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Grand Théâtre du Luxembourg, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Staatsoper and Philharmonie in Berlin, Teatro Real in Madrid, Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center in New York).
Philippe Jaroussky is signed exclusively to Erato and has received numerous awards for his recordings with the label. With Heroes (Vivaldi opera arias) and La Dolce Fiamma he achieved Gold disc status; his tribute to Carestini (with le Concert d’Astrée and Emmanuelle Haim) won CD of the year at the Victoires de la Musique and the Midem Classical Awards in 2009; his Stabat Mater with soprano Julia Lezhneva and I Barocchisti picked up the 2014 International Classical Music Awards for best Baroque Vocal Album and Best Opera Album. Of the 2013 release Farinelli: Porpora Arias, Gramophone wrote: “Jaroussky’s rapid passagework in quick heroic arias is precise…but the outstanding moments are slow arias that could have been tailor-made for Jaroussky’s sweetly graceful melodic singing”.
In recent years he has collaborated with singers including Cecilia Bartoli and Nathalie Stutzmann, as well as singing with and directing the Ensemble Artaserse, the Baroque orchestra he founded in 2002. The group takes its name from the Vinci opera Artaserse, which Jaroussky revived in its spectacular modern-day permiere as one of five exceptional countertenors in the cast.
Susan Graham – hailed as “an artist to treasure” by the New York Times – rose to the highest echelon of international performers within just a few years of her professional debut, mastering an astonishing range of repertoire and genres along the way. Her operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written especially for her. A familiar face at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, she also maintains a strong international presence at such key venues as Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet, Santa Fe Opera and the Hollywood Bowl. She won a Grammy Award for her collection of Ives songs, and has also been recognized throughout her career as one of the foremost exponents of French vocal music. Although a native of Texas, she was awarded the French government’s prestigious “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur,” both for her popularity as a performer in France and in honor of her commitment to French music.
This season, Graham makes her role debut as Herodias in Francisco Negrin’s production of Richard Strauss’s Salome at Houston Grand Opera and reprises her celebrated portrayal of Mrs. Patrick De Rocher, mother of the convicted murderer, in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s company premiere of Dead Man Walking. In concert, she sings Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre and excerpts from Les Troyens with Donald Runnicles and the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the Berlin Musikfest, revisits her signature interpretation of the composer’s Les nuits d’été with the Vancouver Symphony, and headlines the Jacksonville Symphony 2020 Gala. To complete the season, she graces a “Beyond the Aria” concert in Chicago’s Millennium Park and partners with pianist Malcolm Martineau for recitals of Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder in Berkeley’s Cal Performances series and of her Schumann-inspired Frauenliebe und -leben: Variations program in Fort Worth’s Cliburn Concert Series and at New York’s Lincoln Center.
Last season, Graham joined Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony for Mahler’s Third Symphony at London’s BBC Proms and in Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, Lucerne, and Paris. She made her role debut as Humperdinck’s Witch in Hansel and Gretel at LA Opera, hosted “An Evening with Susan Graham” at Dallas’s Meyerson Symphony Center, sang Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne with David Robertson and the Sydney Symphony, headlined the Mayshad Foundation’s season-closing gala concert in Marrakech, and returned to Carnegie Hall, first with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and then with Alec Baldwin and Leonard Slatkin for the Manhattan School of Music’s Centennial Gala Concert. To mark the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s death, she performed Les nuits d’été with the Houston Symphony and made her New Zealand debut in La mort de Cléopâtre with the New Zealand Symphony under Edo de Waart. Other highlights of recent seasons include starring in Trouble in Tahiti at Lyric Opera of Chicago to honor the Bernstein Centennial, making her title role debut opposite James Morris in Marc Blitzstein’s 1948 opera Regina at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and appearing alongside Anna Netrebko, Renée Fleming and a host of other luminaries to celebrate the Metropolitan Opera’s five decades at its Lincoln Center home.
Graham’s earliest operatic successes were in such trouser roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Her technical expertise soon brought mastery of Mozart’s more virtuosic roles, like Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Idamante in Idomeneo and Cecilio in Lucio Silla, as well as the title roles of Handel’s Ariodante and Xerxes. She went on to triumph in two iconic Richard Strauss mezzo roles, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos. These brought her to prominence on all the world’s major opera stages, including the Met, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, among many others. In addition to creating the role of Sister Helen Prejean at San Francisco Opera, she starred in Washington National Opera’s recent revival of Dead Man Walking, making her triumphant role debut as the convict’s mother. She also sang the leading ladies in the Met’s world premieres of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, and made her Dallas Opera debut as Tina in a new production of The Aspern Papers by Dominick Argento. As Houston Grand Opera’s Lynn Wyatt Great Artist, she starred as Prince Orlofsky in the company’s first staging of Die Fledermaus in 30 years, before heading an all-star cast as Sycorax in the Met’s Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island and making her rapturously received musical theater debut in a new production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
It was in an early Lyon production of Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict that Graham scored particular raves from the international press, and a triumph in the title role of Massenet’s Chérubin at Covent Garden sealed her operatic stardom. Further invitations to collaborate on French music were forthcoming from many of its preeminent conductors, including Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. New productions of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust and Massenet’s Werther were mounted for the mezzo in New York, London, Paris, Chicago, San Francisco and beyond. More recently, she made title role debuts in Offenbach’s comic masterpieces La belle Hélène and The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein at Santa Fe Opera, as well as proving herself the standout star of the Met’s star-studded revival of Les Troyens, which was broadcast live to cinema audiences worldwide in the company’s celebrated “Live in HD” series. Graham’s affinity for French repertoire has not been limited to the opera stage, also serving as the foundation for her extensive concert and recital career. Such great cantatas and symphonic song cycles as Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre and Les nuits d’été, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer provide opportunities for collaborations with the world’s leading orchestras, and she makes regular appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Orchestre de Paris and London Symphony Orchestra.
Graham recently expanded her distinguished discography with Nonesuch Records’ DVD/Blu-ray release of William Kentridge’s new treatment of Berg’s Lulu, which captures her celebrated role debut as Countess Geschwitz at the Met. She has also recorded all the works described above, as well as appearing on a series of lauded solo albums, including Virgins, Vixens & Viragos on the Onyx label, featuring songs and arias by composers from Purcell to Sondheim; Un frisson français, a program of French song recorded with pianist Malcolm Martineau, also for Onyx; C’est ça la vie, c’est ça l’amour!, an album of 20th-century operetta rarities on Erato; and La Belle Époque, an award-winning collection of songs by Reynaldo Hahn with pianist Roger Vignoles, from Sony Classical. Among the mezzo’s numerous honors are Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year and an Opera News Award, while Gramophone magazine has dubbed her “America’s favorite mezzo.”
Described by the press as the “perfect example of a thinking musician” (Die Welt) and acclaimed for his interpretations of music from Bach to Boulez, David Fray performs in the world’s major venues as a recitalist, soloist and chamber musician. He has collaborated with leading orchestras under distinguished conductors such as Marin Alsop, Semyon Bychkov, Andrey Boreyko, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti, Paavo Järvi, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Sanderling, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Jaap van Zweden. Orchestral appearances in Europe have included the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, London Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Salzburg Mozarteum, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Orchestre de Paris, and Orchestre National de France. David Fray made his US debut in 2009 with The Cleveland Orchestra followed by performances with the Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has given recitals at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory in New York, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and appears regularly at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Mozarteum Salzburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, and many other of the world’s major venues.
The work of Bach has always occupied a special place in David Fray’s repertoire and this season, he continues to tour with the Goldberg Variations. Recently, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris presented a cycle of Bach’s work featuring David Fray in recital, play-directing keyboard concertos for two, three and four pianos and accompanying Renaud Capuçon in Bach’s Violin Sonatas.
In the 20/21 season, David Fray play-directs the Kammerorchester Wien-Berlin at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, followed by performances of Hamburg Ballet’s John Neumeier work “for the time of coronavirus” entitled Ghost Light, the first social-distanced production of its kind, in which Mr. Fray plays an all-Schubert accompaniment. He also tours Europe in solo recitals as well as in a duo program alongside Renaud Capuçon. Orchestral performances include the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, Orchestre National de France, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Kammerakademie Potsdam to name a few.
Mr. Fray’s latest releases include the Bach Concertos for 2, 3, and 4 pianos, a “musical family affair” alongside his teacher Jacques Rouvier and his former students Audrey Vigoureux and Emmanuel Christien, and the Bach Violin Sonatas with Renaud Capuçon. In 2017, Mr. Fray released a CD of selected Chopin piano works which was followed by his first public performances of the composer’s music. The previous disc called “Fantaisie,” an album of Schubert’s late piano works, was named Gramophone Editor’s Choice and Sinfini Music called it “one of the most appealing listening experiences of present times” and “exceptionally thoughtful and touching.” Mr. Fray records exclusively for Erato/Warner Classics, and his first album featuring works of Bach and Boulez was praised as the “best record of the year” by the London Times and Le Soir. Mr. Fray’s second release, a recording of Bach keyboard concerti with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, was awarded by the German Recording Academy. An album featuring Schubert’s Moments Musicaux and Impromptus followed. Mr. Fray’s other critically acclaimed releases include Mozart piano concerti with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Jaap van Zweden, and the Bach Partitas Nos. 2 and 6 along with the Toccata in C minor. In 2008, the TV network ARTE +7 presented a documentary on David Fray directed by the renowned French director Bruno Monsaingeon. The film “Sing, Swing & Think” was subsequently released on DVD.
David Fray holds multiple awards, including the German Echo Klassik Prize for Instrumentalist of the Year and the Young Talent Award from the Ruhr Piano Festival. In 2008, he was named Newcomer of the Year by the BBC Music Magazine. At the 2004 Montreal International Music Competition, he received both the Second Grand Prize and the Prize for the best interpretation of a Canadian work.
David Fray started taking piano lessons at the age of four. He furthered his studies with Jacques Rouvier, who is also featured on his latest Schubert album, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris.