All The Strad articles in Web Issue – Page 66
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Article
Russian cellist Mikhail Nemtsov wins Fournier Award
Mikhail Nemtsov has won the Pierre Fournier Award after a final round of auditions at London's Wigmore Hall. The Russian cellist, 23, who studies with Hannah Roberts at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, received a prize that includes a recital at the Wigmore Hall, and several orchestral ...
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Article
Pink Floyd to unveil solo by violinist Stéphane Grappelli
Three classic albums by Pink Floyd will be reissued later this year in multidisc versions featuring a raft of extras. Among the unreleased demos, live recordings and other rarities is a version of the title track from 1975's Wish You Were Here featuring Stéphane Grappelli. The French jazz violinist contributed ...
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Article
Notos and Excelsa quartets win at Charles Hennen competition
The Notos Quartet and the Excelsa Quartet have won the top prizes at the Charles Hennen International Chamber Music Competition in Heerlen, the Netherlands. The Notos Quartet, a German piano quartet which earlier this month won the 2011 Parkhouse Award in the UK, received first prize in the piano-and-string-ensemble division. ...
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Article
Double bassist Timothy Cobb to join New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Double bassist Timothy Cobb will join the New York Philharmonic as acting principal bass for the 2011–12 season. Cobb is on leave from the Metropolitan Opera, where he is principal bass. The New York Philharmonic has four bass vacancies to fill, including the principal and associate principal positions.
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Article
Jon Lord writes for Henley Festival Orchestra
Jon Lord, co-founder of the rock group Deep Purple, is to compose a new work for Henley Festival Orchestra. The piece, which will have its premiere in 2012, will be Lord's first classical composition for young musicians. The Henley Festival Orchestra is a youth ensemble that was founded in ...
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Article
Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley takes first prize at Vibrarte Competition
US violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley won first prize at the Vibrarte Competition for violinists in Paris. The 26-year-old, who was born in North Carolina, and whose teachers have included Mauricio Fuks and Christoph Poppen, received €16,000. Second prize went to Hyuk Joo Kwun, 25, from South Korea. Mari Poll, 23, from ...
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Article
Detroit Symphony Orchestra concertmaster off to Dallas
Emmanuelle Boisvert, concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra since 1988, is to join the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. She will take up her new position of associate concertmaster this September. Boisvert is the latest of several Detroit Symphony musicians to announce their departure this year. A six-month strike by the orchestra's ...
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Article
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment players give violin lesson to waiter
A touring British orchestral musician has given a waiter an impromptu violin lesson in a restaurant in Modena. Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment violist Annette Isserlis was dining with three fellow musicians when the waiter brought out his student violin. She then gave him his first ever violin lesson, ...
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Article
Violinist Joshua Bell joins Academy of St Martin in the Fields
The American violinist Joshua Bell has been appointed music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, which began life in 1958. He is the only musician to have held the title apart from its founder, Neville Marriner, who stepped down five years ago and becomes the group’s ...
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Article
Cellist Andreas Fleck receives AZ Medien Culture Prize
Cellist Andreas Fleck has been awarded the CHF25,000 (£18,000) Culture Prize from Swiss media group AZ Medien. The 42-year-old Augsburg-born musician has lived in Zurich since 2001 and is artistic director of the Boswiler Sommer festival.
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ArticleBrahms: Cello Sonatas no.1 in E minor op.38 & no.2 in F major op.99, ‘F-A-E’ Scherzo (arr. Bailey), Lieder arrangements
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Brahms’s two cello sonatas are accompanied by a welcome selection of transcriptionsMusicians: Zuill Bailey (cello) Awadagin Pratt (piano)Composer: BrahmsZuill Bailey’s transcription of the scherzo from the ‘F-A-E’ Sonata, with its original melodic line presented an octave lower, is an excellent addition to the cello ...
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ArticleRolla: Viola Sonatas in E flat major op.3 no.1, in D minor op.3 no.2 & in C major, Duetto in A major for violin and viola op.18 no.1, Esercizi
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Advocacy for a little-known composer needs more of a sense of his periodMusicians: Jennifer Stumm (viola) Liza Ferschtman (violin) Connie Shih (piano)Composer: RollaAlessandro Rolla (1757–1841), who appears to have given Paganini lessons in 1795, is now relatively unknown but was clearly a ...
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ArticleRoslavets: Cello Sonatas nos.1 & 2, Meditation, Dances of the White Maidens, Viola Sonata (transcr. cello)
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Impressive playing that manages to surmount a heavy-going musical voiceMusicians: Lachezar Kostov (cello) Viktor Valkov (piano)Composer: RoslavetsIn his heyday in the 1920s, Nikolai Roslavets (1880–1944) was viewed as a progressive, boundary-pushing composer. Yet by the end of the decade, his post-Scriabinesque chromaticism fell ...
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ArticleVivaldi: La stravaganza op.4 nos.1—6
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Reassuringly sane and richly enjoyable Vivaldi that is surprisingly restrainedMusicians: Fabio Biondi (violin/director) Europa GalanteComposer: Vivaldi Vivaldi came of age with his set of 12 concertos op.4, whose title refers to the music’s tantalising fantasy of invention achieved within strict musical parameters. ...
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ArticleWeinberg: Piano Trio op.24. Shostakovich: Piano Trios nos.1 & 2
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Trios by Shostakovich and his pupil Weinberg come across forcefully Musicians: Trio VoceComposer: Weinberg, ShostakovichIf the name of the recently formed Trio Voce seems unfamiliar, its members are of immaculate pedigree. Violinist Jasmine Lin is a founder ...
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Article
Australian Chamber Orchestra acquires £1.2m Stradivari violin
Satu Vänskä, the assistant leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), is to play on a Stradivari bought by the orchestra's own instrument fund. The violin, a composite of two instruments made by Stradivari between 1728 and 1729, was purchased from London dealer J.&A. Beare. It has been valued at ...
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ArticleVilla-Lobos: Piano Trios nos.1–3. Fernández: Trio brasileiro
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Persuasive performances of early 20th-century music from BrazilMusicians: Damocles TrioComposer: Villa-Lobos, FernándezPosterity may well value Villa-Lobos’s instrumental and chamber music as his most important contribution to the 20th- century repertoire. Though he was to build a reputation as a distinctly South American orchestral ...
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ArticleBach: Sonata no.1 in G minor BWV1001, Partitas no.1 in B minor BWV1002 & no.2 in D minor BWV1004. Reger: Preludes and Fugues in B minor op.117 no.1 & in G minor op.117 no.2, Chaconne in G minor op.117
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: A convincing coupling of Bach with a later composer writing under his spellMusicians: Sayaka Shoji (violin)Composer: Bach, RegerThe booklet for this CD does not inspire confidence, transposing Bach’s First Partita into G minor and stating that his whole cycle culminates in the ...
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ArticleBeethoven: Piano Trios in D major op.70 no.1 ‘Ghost’, in E flat major op.70 no.2 & in B flat major op.11
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Well-judged performances of three of Beethoven’s piano triosMusicians: Gryphon TrioComposer: BeethovenAchieving the spectral effects in the second movement of Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ Trio calls for great care in balancing instruments. The members of the Gryphon Trio judge it to perfection, and this is just ...
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ArticleBach: Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin BWV1001—6
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Philosophy and dance come to bear on a stimulating set of Bach’s solo violin worksMusicians: Ruth Waterman (violin) Composer: BachThese thought-provoking performances, with their superb analytical essays, have taken an age to reach us. Leeds-born Ruth Waterman, ...
