[widgetkit id=82]

MASTERCLASSES OFFERED AT SYDDANSK
MUSIKKONSERVATORIUM (SDMK)

Individual Solo and Chamber Music

led by

Steven Dann – Canada,  20th August 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. 2016

Benjamin Bowman – US, 20th August 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. 2016

Finghin Collins – Ireland, 26th August 10 – 12 a.m. 2016

Richard Lester – England 23rd August 12.30 – 2.30 p.m. 2016

The sessions and concerts are open to both students who wish to play their instruments in the classes and those students who wish to listen and observe.
The students’ close family are also warmly invited to observe.
There is no fee for participating.
Sessions start approx. to be announced

MASTERCLASSES (lasting 1 – 1.5 hours)

I) Chamber Music and Solo Sessions led by Steven Dann, Richard Lester, Finghin Collins & Benjamin Bowman
The Solo and Chamber Music Session offers a unique opportunity of not only gaining inspiration but also working alongside the guests.
If individual tuition with one of the visiting guests is wished for, students are encouraged to bring music with which they are comfortable. Please apply soon!
The participants will be encouraged to receive tuition with guests regardless of their instrument. So for example a cellist is welcome to play for a guest violinist or violist.

– For this session once it is known the number of participants the music will be chosen to best suit the participants needs.

Each day will culminate with participants and their families being offered free entrance to the concert at Esbjerg International Chamber Music Festival.
For participants and families – The conferencier Jesper Lützhøft will give a fun and colorful concert introduction 30 mins before the concert.
Schedule will be adjusted to accommodate the number of participants.
Those musicians who participate, along with their families will be given free access to all concerts in the Esbjerg International Chamber Music Festival week.

Jesper Lützhøft er oprindeligt musiker – guitarist; men har beskæftiget sig med musik og formidling af musik på alle niveauer i det klassiske og moderne danske musikliv. Han har været chef for Den Anden Opera og Odense Symfoniorkester og har i en årrække været producent, producer mmm i Danmarks Radio.
Han er i det danske musikliv kendt som en særdeles initiativrig musikentrepenør; men hans interesser omfatter derudover litteratur og poesi i et større omfang. Har skrevet libretto til flere operaer.

Steven Dann’s career has covered a wealth of violistic possibilities. As principal viola of some of the world’s leading orchestras, as a veteran of the string quartet and chamber music world, as soloist and recitalist and as a dedicated teacher.
Mr. Dann was born in Vancouver, Canada. Upon graduation from university he was named Principal Viola of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, a position he has subsequently held with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Vancouver Symphony and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has also served as guest principal of the Luzern Festival Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle and, in both performance and recordings, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Paavo Berglund, Ivan Fischer and Pierre Boulez.
Steven Dann has collaborated as a soloist with such Maestri as Sir Andrew Davis, Rudolph Barshai, Jiri Belohlavek, Sir John Elliott Gardiner, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Vladimir Ashkenazy, JoAnn Falletta and Oliver Knussen. Since 1990 Mr. Dann has been a member of the Smithsonian Chamber Players in Washington D.C. and was a founding member of the Axelrod String Quartet.
http://www.stevendann.org

American-Canadian violinist Benjamin Bowman performs to critical acclaim throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Benjamin is very active and engaged as a chamber musician and soloist; he is a member or frequent guest artist for leading chamber music ensembles internationally, including the twice Grammynominated ARC (Artists of the Royal Conservatory), Art Of Time, and Leondari Ensemble. Benjamin was featured on the 2013 Juno-winning album ‘Levant’ and the 2011 Juno-nominated disc ‘Armenian Chamber Music’ with the Amici Chamber Ensemble. Other collaborative work includes extensive immersion in contemporary/new music, improvisation and performance with singer/songwriters. Benjamin is concertmaster of the American Ballet Theatre orchestra in New York.
Bowman’s performances have been recorded for radio broadcast in the USA, in Canada with the CBC, the UK, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Korea. His discography includes recent solo and chamber-music releases on the Sony Masterworks/RCA Red Seal, ATMA Classique, and Innova labels. Bowman received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
http://benjaminbowman.ca/

One of Britain’s foremost cellists, Richard Lester has earned distinction as a concerto and recital soloist and as an accomplished chamber musician. He is equally at home in period instrument performance and in ‘modern’ and is associated with some of the finest performers from both fields. Alongside his activities with the Florestan Trio, he is principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

He has appeared as soloist with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Roger Norrington, Paavo Berglund, Myung Whun Chung and Sandor Vegh, and has performed frequently as director/soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in some of the world’s most prestigious venues. In the UK he has played concertos with, among others, the BBC Scottish SO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata, and is frequently called upon to be guest-leader of the cello sections of the major London orchestras.

Richard Lester was a founder member of the celebrated ensemble Domus, with whom he toured worldwide and recorded most of the repertoire for Piano Quartet. His interest in period performance led him to join Hausmusik, a flexible ensemble performing and recording classical and early romantic chamber music on period instruments. He is a frequent guest with the Nash Ensemble, especially in their series at the Wigmore Hall, and has been invited to take part in many chamber-music festivals around the world, most recently in the USA, Canada, Japan, Italy and Sweden.

Recent highlights include a televised performance of Schubert’s Trout Quintet with pianist Andras Schiff as part of the Wigmore Hall’s centenary celebrations, and a new, much acclaimed CD release of Boccherini Quintets with the Vanbrugh Quartet.

His recording with Susan Tomes of the complete music for cello and piano by Mendelssohn and a disc of Boccherini sonatas on period instruments, both available on the Hyperion label, have received enthusiastic critical acclaim.

The dance, the exhilaration, the joy, the fantasy, the popularity, the marvellous and the boundless have always been ingredients of music – whether it has been the music of the people, the music of the church, the music of the nobility, the music of the bourgeoisie and the music of art.

Music has always been created and played by these types who spend their whole lives mastering an instrument, filling their heads with melodies and rhythms, and music has been created by an endless succession of geniuses, eccentrics, loners and family men who have all had this strange urge to put notes together in patterns and forms and thus try to capture a sensation, a feeling, a mood or construct new contexts and hitherto unknown worlds – just with the help of a bit of music paper.

Music has evolved at all times – and in all directions – at times the different currents have merged for a time and then separated again, at times there has been a great distance between the music of the people and the music of the elite, and at times different genres have been so busy defining themselves that they have been unaware that their music too was only one possibility among an infinite number of musical forms of expression.

Nowadays, there seems to be a greater general realisation that many different kinds of music can contain great qualities – now we can enjoy or be enriched by Bach, Brahms and the Beatles – and no one looks down on jazz anymore?

Almost 100 years ago the guitar was not welcome in the classical concert hall, in our time the accordion has been condemned, but those times are over.

At this year’s Esbjerg Classical Festival EICMF, the accordion takes centre stage – not least because of its importance as a tango instrument – and here it is again! Has tango now become classical chamber music?
Yes, it is to a certain extent – Stravinsky wrote a tango already in the 30s; but when we say tango nowadays it is usually the Argentinian Nueva Tango, which Astor Piazolla is the godfather of, that we think of. Notwithstanding the fact that Finland is still as big a tango country as Argentina …

As if putting tango on the programme of a classical music festival wasn’t enough, the EICMF continues to live up to its reputation as one of our most progressive and wide-ranging chamber music festivals by presenting a fair amount of new music, a fair amount of ‘rare’ music by lesser-known but highly gifted composers, and this year the Festival is particularly topical and norm-breaking by presenting a series of works by British phenomenon Thomas Adés, who will receive the major Sonning Music Prize later this year.
Adés is unique as a pianist, conductor and composer, and he is no dietary contempt when it comes to purely musical matters: Two of the works we will hear from him at this year’s festival are his arrangements of English pop/rock hits from the 80s. Not so long ago, one would have written that we’ll also hear some of his more serious works; but that’s not really the case anymore – a piano piece with unusual time signatures like 2/6, 9/12 or 5/20 and a rather challenging harmony is no longer a more interesting thing than a clever arrangement of a Ska hit. We have to learn to live with it and enjoy the treats that still fall off along the way – and come to think of it, there are works by Beethoven, Haydn, Richard Stauss etc. that we don’t need to hear again – just as we do with a hit song from our youth.

One could have begun by saying that this year’s programme at the EICMF is one of the most courageous chamber music festival programmes in years, but we are not boasting in that way here, so it should simply be mentioned that there is Schubert, Beethoven and Brahms on the programme; but that what stands out most are the names we do not know so well – if at all: Madsen, Bliss, Veress, Lundquist and Benjamin.
Rest assured that there is something in store when these composers are on the programme of the simultaneously discerning and omnivorous Esbjerg International Chamber Music Festival!

We hope to see you there!