All Article articles – Page 152
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Article
Violinist Alexandre Da Costa wins $25,000 Virginia Parker Prize
Violinist Alexandre Da Costa has been awarded this year's Virginia Parker Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts. The $25,000 prize is given to Canadian classical performers under the age of 32. Da Costa, 31, studied with Zakhar Bron in Madrid and plays the 1727 'Di Barbaro' Stradivari.
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Nearly 400 players set record for largest string ensemble
Officials from Guinness World Records have officially certified a new world record for the largest string ensemble under one roof. The ensemble comprised 392 violinists, violists, cellists and double bassists, who performed Pachelbel's Canon in D major as part of the String Jam '10 event at Juanita High School in ...
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Article
Del Sol and JACK quartets win grants for new work
The Del Sol and JACK quartets are among the recipients of Chamber Music America's $170,700 classical commissioning programme for 2010. The Del Sol Quartet from San Francisco will use its award to commission a new work for string quartet and electronica by Mason Bates. New York composer Jason Eckhardt is ...
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Borusan Quartet scoops top prize in New York chamber competition
The Borusan Quartet from Turkey won the gold medal at the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in New York. The Borusan players performed the String Quartet op.29 by their compatriot Fazil Say in the final round at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. The quartet, all of whose members play in ...
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Mirecourt to hold contest for young violinists
A new violin contest will take place later this year in Mirecourt, one of the main historical centres of French violin making. The Mirecourt International Violin Competition runs from 9 to 14 November and is open to violinists aged 25 and under. Jean-Jacques Kantorow is the president of the jury, ...
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Titanic violinist gets entry in biographical dictionary
Wallace Hartley, the violinist who led the Titanic's eight-man orchestra, is one of the latest entrants in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Hartley, who was born in Colne, Lancashire, in 1878, famously played as the Titanic sank in April 1912. He and his fellow musicians were reported to have ...
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American violinist Benjamin Beilman wins Montreal competition
Benjamin Beilman has won the Montreal International Music Competition, which this year was for violinists. The 20-year-old American, who studies with Ida Kavafian at the Curtis Institute of Music, was awarded CAD30,000 (£20,000) for his first prize. He played the Sibelius Violin Concerto in the final. Second prize went to ...
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ArticleFuse
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Fuse: Linzi Stoppard, Ben Lee (electric violin)Composer: VariousFuse is the debut album by this duo of self-professed stadium-rock wannabes. Presenting faithful reproductions of rock classics, the emphasis is on concept rather than content: namely, ‘proving that the electric violin can be as ...
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ArticleBach: Sonatas and Partitas BWV1004–06
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Isabelle Faust (violin) Composer: BachThere is only one thing wrong with this beautiful CD, which is that half of Bach’s solo Sonatas and Partitas are missing. It is a situation that will surely be soon rectified with a second recording, ...
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ArticleCatoire: Violin Sonata no.1 op.15, Poème op.20 (Sonata no.2), Elégie op.26, Romanze op.1 no.4
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Laurent Albrecht Breuninger (violin) Anna Zassimova (piano)Composer: CatoireGeorgy Catoire was Russia’s answer to the young Gabriel Fauré – a composer of exquisite taste rarely given to wearing his heart on his sleeve, yet whose work possesses a tenderness and rapture that continually ...
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ArticleBrahms: Violin Sonatas no.1–3
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin) Lambert Orkis (piano)Composer: BrahmsIn the CD booklet Anne-Sophie Mutter dates her love of Brahms’s violin sonatas back to a performance she heard of them given by David Oistrakh when she was five. She has waited until now to record ...
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ArticleYsaÿe: Trio for two violins and viola*, String Trios nos 1 & 2†
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Tor Johan Bøen*† , Anders Nilsson* (violin) Are Sandbakken*, Juliet Jopling† (viola) Johannes Martens† (cello)Composer: YsaÿeIt has taken several years of research into manuscripts and sketches to arrive at the performing versions of Eugène Ysaÿe’s string trios used in these ...
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ArticleFauré: Violin sonatas no.1 in A major op.13 & no.2 in E minor op.108, Berceuse, Romance, Andante
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Olivier Thouin (violin) François Zeitouni (piano)Composer: FauréCanadian-born virtuoso Olivier Thouin, currently associate concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, possesses the ideal sound for Fauré’s endlessly supple, elegant writing. Even compared to such distinguished rivals in these timeless scores as Augustin ...
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ArticlePaganini: Caprices op.1 (arr. Zinn)
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Wihan QuartetComposer: PaganiniWilliam Zinn’s arrangements transform Paganini’s solo violin caprices into string quartets with fascinating, yet questionable outcomes; for Zinn has freely added his own material, whether as introductory bars (for no.24), harmonic, registral or articulation changes, ornamental elaborations, or harmonic and ...
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ArticleBach: Sonata no.1 in G minor BWV1001, Partita no.3 in E major BWV1006. Ysaÿe: Sonatas no.1 in G minor op.27 no.1 & no.2 in A minor op.27 no.2
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Liza Ferschtman (violin)Composer: Bach, YsaÿeThe programming of this disc is impeccable. Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas are consciously first cousins to Bach’s sonatas and partitas, and in these particular works, with G minor Ysaÿe drawing from Bach in the same key, and ...
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ArticleBeethoven: Cello Sonatas nos.1–5
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Sébastien Singer (cello) Marc Pantillon (piano) Composer: BeethovenTen years into his career as soloist and Schweizer Piano Trio member, Sébastien Singer decided the time was right to tackle Beethoven’s cello sonatas. This high-quality recording with Swiss performers on a Swiss label ...
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ArticleSchumann: Adagio and Allegro op.70, Fantasiestücke op.73, Fünf Stücke im Volkston op.102, Three Romances op.94 (arr Gledhill), Märchenbilder op.113 (arr Hausmann)
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Klaus Storck (cello) Aya Ishihara (piano)Composer: SchumannKlaus Storck, soloist since the age of 12, teacher of generations of cellists and still professor in Cologne, Hanover and Munich, is, claims the booklet, one of the few instrumentalists today to keep the chamber music ...
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ArticleShostakovich: Cello Sonata in D minor op.40, Two Pieces from Ballet Suite no.2 (arr. Atovmyan), Viola Sonata op.147 (arr. cello)
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Michal Ka?ka (cello) Jaromír Klepá? (piano)Composer: ShostakovichAlthough Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata is hardly under-recorded, this release is made more interesting by its coupling with the Viola Sonata. Michal Ka?ka performs this work in its original tessitura as opposed to the arrangement by Daniil ...
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ArticleBritten: String Quartets nos.2 & 3, Three Divertimenti
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Elias QuartetComposer: Britten It is a curious fact that the closer Britten’s instrumental writing approximates to the world of his vocal music the happier it invariably sounds. Conversely, the more he attempts to emulate Beethovenian thematicism, the less comfortable ...
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ArticleMozart: String Quintets in G minor K516 & C minor K406
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Chilingirian Quartet, Yuko Inoue (viola) Composer: MozartFlagging finances, and the need to offer the customary three works for a subscription publication, encouraged Mozart to fashion an unconvincing String Quintet in C minor from his Serenade for six wind instruments. It ...
