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Home , 2017 Birthday Honours, Aleksandra Kurzak, Anna Prohaska, Echo Klassik, Francesco Piemontesi, Hagen Quartet

Rubinstein Circle 2020/21 Season at – Biographies

Autumn 2020

Sunday 20 September 2020, 7.30pm La Serenissima

La Serenissima is the UK’s most dynamic voice of Italian baroque music. Born in 1994 out of one man's passion for Vivaldi, they bring well-known and neglected music to life through research, virtuosic performances and down-to-earth dialogue with audiences. La Serenissima has appeared at many of the UK’s leading festivals including the Bath Bach, Bath International, Beverley, Buxton, Cambridge Summer, Chelsea, Cheltenham, Lichfield, Ryedale, South Bank, Warwick and York Early Music, and at venues including Bridgewater Hall, St George’s Bristol, Snape Maltings, Cadogan Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall. They have given concerts for Music in the Round and leading cultural tours operator Martin Randall Travel; they have also received support from Arts Council for UK touring projects Vivaldi: The Red Priest and The Four Seasons. They have performed abroad in Belgium, , Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, , Malta, Mexico and Spain to great acclaim.

Wednesday 30 September 2020, 7.30pm ; Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano; piano

Roderick Williams is one of the most sought-after of his generation with a wide repertoire spanning baroque to contemporary. He enjoys relationships with all the major UK houses and has sung in the world premières of by David Sawer, Sally Beamish, , and Alexander Knaifel as well as roles including Papageno and Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Così fan tutte, and the title roles in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Britten’s . He performs regularly with leading conductors and orchestras throughout the UK, Europe, North America and Australia, and his many festival appearances include the BBC Proms, and the , Cheltenham and Aldeburgh festivals. As a composer he has had works premièred at Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, Purcell Room and on national radio. In December 2016 he won the prize for Best Choral Composition at the British Composer Awards. Roderick Williams was awarded an OBE in June 2017 and was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Opera at both the 2018 and 2019 Olivier Awards.

Dame Sarah Connolly was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having previously been awarded a CBE in the 2010 . She has sung at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, , and Tanglewood festivals and the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a soloist at the Last Night. Opera engagements have taken her around the world from the to House, the Opera, , the Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Bayreuth, Glyndebourne and Aix-en-Provence festivals. Highlights in her 2018/19 season included Fricka in Der Ring des Nibelungen at both the and Madrid. Dame Sarah Connolly held a Residency at Wigmore Hall in the 2018/19 season and gave recitals for the Schubertíada a Vilabertran, Het , Grand Théâtre de Genève, Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid and the Philadelphia Society.

Julius Drake enjoys a reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field. He appears throughout the world and his many recordings include a widely acclaimed series with for Hyperion, three of which won Gramophone awards, a series for EMI with , appearances on with Joyce DiDonato, and Matthew Polenzani, and Schubert’s Poetisches Tagebuch with Christoph Prégardien, which won the 2016 Jahrpreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. His recent recording of Janáček’s Diary of One who Disappeared with Nicky Spence has garnered widespread praise. Forthcoming performances include concert series at 92nd Street Y and Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and recitals at La Scala Milan with Aleksandra Kurzak, in Barcelona with Dame Sarah Connolly, in with , at Schubertiade Schwarzenberg with Christoph Prégardien, Ian Bostridge and Gerald Finley, and on tour in Europe with Anna Prohaska and Eva-Maria Westbroek.

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Monday 19 October 2020, 7.30pm violin

One of the world’s leading violinists, Julia Fischer is a versatile musician also known for her abilities as a concert pianist, a chamber musician and a violin teacher. During the 2019/20 season, Julia Fischer appears in concert with the Philharmonic and Berlin Radio Symphony with Vladimir Jurowski, Symphony Orchestra and with Philippe Jordan, Chicago Symphony under , Orchestre National de with Emmanuel Krivine and Bamberg Symphony under Jakub Hrůša. She gives recitals in major European concert halls with the pianist Aris Blettenberg as well as with the Julia Fischer Quartet. She recently completed two extensive tours of Asia, one with the Dresden Philharmonic and Michael Sanderling, and the other with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski. Other highlights of the past season included a European tour with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, an orchestra she led from the violin in a program featuring Augustin Hadelich. Julia Fischer holds numerous awards including the Federal Cross of Merit, Gramophone Award and the German Culture Prize. She plays a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1742) as well as an instrument made by Phillip Augustin (2018).

Wednesday 28 October 2020, 7.30pm Quartet

The is revered across the globe for its richness of timbre and infectious passion. Performing at the world’s major concert halls, and having won five Gramophone Awards for its recordings, the Quartet is firmly established as one of the foremost chamber ensembles in the world. This season, the Quartet returns to major venues including Tonhalle Zurich, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Konserthuset Stockholm and Società del Quartetto di Milano, and to festivals such as the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg. The ensemble performed at the Biennale at Muziekgebouw Amsterdam last month and embarked on its first tour to Israel with performances in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa earlier this season. Further tours to the USA and Asia will take place in the spring. The Quartet records exclusively for and last autumn released its new recording of Shostakovich string quartets Nos. 2,7 and 8. The Pavel Haas Quartet takes its name from the Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899–1944).

Tuesday 1 December 2020, 7.30pm ; Jörg Widmann clarinet

The three-decade career of the Hagen Quartet began in 1981. Collaborations with artists such as the late and also György Kurtág are as important to the Quartet as its appearances with performers including , , Sabine Meyer and , Heinrich Schiff and Jörg Widmann. Its most recent recording, of Mozart’s String Quintets, has received Diapason d’Or, Choc de Classica and awards. Highlights this season include concerts at Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the , and performances in Hamburg, Cologne, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Shanghai, Carnegie Hall in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. As teachers and mentors at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and the Hochschule für Musik , as well as in international masterclasses, the Quartet’s members pass on their great wealth of experience to younger colleagues.

Clarinettist, composer and conductor Jörg Widmann is one of the most versatile and intriguing artists of his generation. As Carnegie Hall’s 2019/20 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer Chair his work will be focused throughout the season. Other performances see him appear as a clarinettist, composer and conductor, artist in residence at WDR Sinfonieorchester, at Palau de la Música Barcelona and at Bergen International Festival. Chamber music performances will see him in concerts with long-standing chamber music partners such as Andras Schiff, , Mitsuko Uchida, , Antoine Tamestit and the Hagen Quartet at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Salzburg Festival, Carnegie Hall New York and Wiener Konzerthaus amongst others.

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Spring 2021

Saturday 20 February 2021, 7.30pm Sabine Devieilhe soprano; Mathieu Pordoy piano

Sabine Devieilhe is in demand on French and international stages with a repertoire spanning from the renaissance to the contemporary. She received First Prize at the Paris Conservatoire in 2011 and has since been presented with the Opera Singer Discovery and Opera Singer of the Year awards by Victoires de la Musique Classique. She has performed at the Aix-en- Provence Festival, Lyon National Opera, , Opéra Comique, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Dutch National Opera, La Monnaie, Glyndebourne, La Scala Milan, Royal Opera House, Zurich Opera House and the Wiener Staatsoper. A fervent exponent of and Mélodie, this season Sabine Devieilhe has performed in recital with Anne Le Bozec at the Park Avenue Armory in New York.

French pianist and recitalist Mathieu Pordoy has emerged as one of the most promising coaches of his generation. Internationally acclaimed, he has coached at the most prominent opera houses, including the , Paris Opera, and Opernhaus Zürich. He has given masterclasses at the Mariinsky Academy of Young Opera Singers and—at the invitation of Joan Dornemann—held staff positions with the Canadian Vocal Arts Institute in Montreal and International Vocal Arts Institute in Israel. Mathieu Pordoy has collaborated with conductors such as Fabio Luisi, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Gianandrea Noseda, Daniele Gatti, François-Xavier Roth, Mikko Franck, and Alain Altinoglu. He has given recitals and concerts at the Edinburgh International Festival, Opéra Bastille, Musée d’Orsay, and Les Musicales du Luberon, among other venues and festivals.

Wednesday 17 February 2021, 7.30pm Anna Lucia Richter soprano; Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Anna Lucia Richter was trained by Kurt Widmer in Basel and completed her singing studies with Klesie Kelly-Moog at the Cologne Academy of Music. She has won several international prizes, most recently the prestigious Borletti–Buitoni Trust Award and the International Competition. She has performed with many orchestras worldwide including the London Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and and with conductors such as , Sir and Thomas Hengelbrock. On the opera stage Anna Lucia Richter appeared recently in Henze’s Elegie für Junge Liebende. She is a particularly enthusiastic Lied singer, and has already built up an extensive repertoire and gives guest performances at all the major recital venues with Michael Gees and Gerold Huber. Anna Lucia Richter frequently includes contemporary compositions in her recitals such as the world première of Singet leise (‘Sing softly’) by and Ophelia Sings by , which he composed especially for her.

For more than thirty years the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra has appeared at leading concert halls and opera houses, performing diverse repertoire around the world from the Baroque to the present. The Orchestra’s guiding principle, however, remains unchanged: creative curiosity combined with the intention of playing a composition in as lively and as expressive a manner as possible. It is known internationally for cultivated and simultaneously rousing ensemble playing. The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra performs with artists such as , , Isabelle Faust, René Jacobs, Pablo Heras-Casado and Andreas Staier. Under the artistic directorship of Gottfried von der Goltz and Kristian Bezuidenhout, the Orchestra gives around one hundred performances each year, including as part of its own subscription series in Freiburg, and Berlin, as well as worldwide tours.

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Thursday 11 March 2021, 7.30pm Florian Boesch baritone; piano

Austrian baritone Florian Boesch is one of today’s foremost Lieder interpreters with appearances at Wigmore Hall as Artist in Residence in the 2014/15 season, Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna as Artist in Residence 2016/17, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Edinburgh Festival as well as throughout the USA and Canada. Accompanied by Malcolm Martineau, he performed the complete Schubert song cycles in Glasgow and Australia, as well as recording them for Onyx. Florian Boesch is a frequent guest on the concert platform, where he has worked with conductors including Sir Roger Norrington, Philippe Herreweghe, Sir , Adam Fischer, Robin Ticciati, Ivor Bolton and . Operatic engagements have taken him to the Salzburg Festival, , Staatsoper Hamburg, Handel Festspiele Halle, Bregenzer Festspiele, Tokyo, , the Bolshoi Theatre and Oper Köln. His recording of Lieder and ballads by Carl Loewe, with on Hyperion, received an . Die schöne Müllerin was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category Best Classical Vocal Solo in 2015.

Recognised as one of the leading accompanists of his generation, Malcolm Martineau has worked with many of the world’s greatest singers including Sir , Dame , Olaf Bär and Barbara Bonney. He has presented his own series at Wigmore Hall (a Britten and a Poulenc series and Decade by Decade – 100 years of German Song broadcast by the BBC) and at the Edinburgh Festival (the complete lieder of ). He has appeared throughout Europe (including London’s Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Royal Opera House; La Scala, Milan; the Chatelet, Paris; the , Barcelona; Berlin’s Philharmonie and Konzerthaus; Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein), North America (including in New York both Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall), Australia (including the Opera House) and at the Aix en Provence, Vienna, Edinburgh, Schubertiade, and Salzburg Festivals. This season’s engagements include appearances with , Magdalena Kozena, Dorothea Röschmann, , , Thomas Oliemanns, , Christiane Karg, , Florian Boesch and Anne Schwanewilms. He was a given an honorary doctorate at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2004, and appointed International Fellow of Accompaniment in 2009. Malcolm was the Artistic Director of the 2011 Leeds Lieder+ Festival.

Summer 2021

Thursday 6 May 2021, 7.30pm Francesco Piemontesi piano

Francesco Piemontesi appears with major ensembles worldwide including the , the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Vienna Symphony, and the London Symphony, Boston Symphony and the Budapest Festival orchestras. He has performed with conductors such as , Sir Mark Elder, Iván Fischer, , Neeme Järvi, Sir Roger Norrington and Sir . Born in Locarno, Francesco Piemontesi studied with Arie Vardi before working with , , Cécile Ousset and Alexis Weissenberg. He rose to international prominence with prizes at several major competitions, including the 2007 Queen Elisabeth Competition, and was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist between 2009 and 2011. Since 2012, Francesco Piemontesi has been the Artistic Director of the Settimane Musicali di Ascona.

Thursday 13 May 2021 7.30pm Christian McBride double bass

Philadelphia native Christian McBride is one of the most highly regarded and foremost jazz bassists of his generation. Initially coming to prominence as a Young Lion in the early '90s, McBride was championed by elders including Benny Carter and longtime idol and mentor, bassist Ray Brown. He has won six Grammy Awards, including two for his big-band albums, 2011's ‘’ and 2017's ‘Bringin' It’. Along with performing, McBride is a well-known radio personality, having hosted The Lowdown: Conversations with Christian on satellite radio, and Jazz Night in America on National Public Radio. In 2018, he released Christian McBride's ‘New Jawn’, an adventurous album featuring trumpeter Josh Evans, tenor saxophonist Marcus Strickland, and drummer Nasheet Waits. In 2020, he releases his ambitious large-ensemble work, ‘The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons’, celebrating the lives of famed civil rights leaders Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and . 4

Monday 24 May 2021, 7.30pm Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

The critically acclaimed Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective was created in 2017 by Tom Poster and Elena Urioste, who met through the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme. A flexible and shape-shifting ensemble, its primary aim is to bring wonderful musicians together to perform in new and varied combinations, but with a specific and ardent commitment to celebrating diversity of as many forms as possible. Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective was Ensemble in Residence at the Cheltenham Festival in 2019, performing and broadcasting celebrated and lesser-known chamber works, giving several world premières, and collaborating with Sir Simon Russell Beale and the cast of The Lehman Trilogy. Other recent and forthcoming highlights include residencies at Champs Hill, Kettle’s Yard, Roman River Festival and Wiltshire Music Centre; festival appearances in Beaminster, Cambridge, Oxford, Paxton House, Ischia and Maryland, as well as multiple broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.

Wednesday 16 June 2021, 7.30pm Igor Levit piano

Igor Levit is the recipient of the 2018 Gilmore Artist Award and was named ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ in 2018 by the Royal Philharmonic Society. An exclusive recording artist for Sony Classical, he released his highly anticipated fourth album for the label in October 2018. Entitled ‘Life’, it features works by Bach, Busoni, Evans, Liszt, Wagner, Schumann and . Last season he performed in recital at Carnegie Hall New York, Philharmonie Berlin, Konzerthaus Vienna, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, and the Tokyo Spring and Lucerne Piano festivals. Orchestral engagements included appearances with the Orchestre de Paris, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, and the Bayerische Rundfunk and Pittsburgh Symphony orchestras. Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1987, Igor Levit completed his piano studies at the University of Music, Drama and Media in 2009 with the highest academic and performance scores in the history of the University.

Thursday 8 July 2021, 7.30pm Doric String Quartet

Firmly established as one of the leading quartets of its generation, the Doric String Quartet receives enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics across the globe. With repertoire ranging from Haydn through to Bartok, Ades and Brett Dean, the Quartet’s schedule takes them to the leading concert halls around the world including Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Konzerthaus, Hamburg , Louvre, Carnegie Hall and Kioi Hall Tokyo as well as regular performances at Wigmore Hall. A highlight of the Quartet’s 2019/20 season programming is Brett Dean’s String Quartet No 3, written specifically for the Quartet. Given its world premiere in June 2019, “Hidden Agendas” was co- commissioned for the Doric by the Berlin Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale, Edinburgh International Festival, Australia and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival and the piece has country premieres across 2019 and 2020.

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