Laureate Series • String Quartet
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555952bk Hoffmeister US 25/7/03 3:31 PM Page 5 Sergey Ostrovsky Laureate Series • String Quartet Sergey Ostrovsky was born in Gorky, Russia. He began playing the violin when he was six years old, studying at the Gorky Music Academy. He emigrated to Israel in 1991 and continued his studies with Yair Kless and Irina Svetlova at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. He won the Lipizer International Violin Franz Anton Competition in Italy, and has served as concertmaster of the Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and the Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra, with all of which he played as a soloist. In March 1999 he won first prize in the Spring Competition in Tel Aviv in two categories, Violin Playing and Best Performance of HOFFMEISTER Israeli Contemporary Music. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras that include the Jerusalem Symphony, Capetown Symphony, Johannesburg Philharmonic, and the Warsaw Amadeus Chamber Orchestras, as well as with orchestras in Romania and Russia. String Quartets Op. 14 Evgenia Epshtein Evgenia Epshtein was born in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), Russia. She began her violin studies at the age of six Aviv Quartet and completed her course at the Sverdlovsk High School for Talented Musicians. She moved to Israel in 1990, First Prize: 1999 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition studying there with Arthur Zissman, and at the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel Aviv University with Yair Kless and The scores and parts of the following works are available from: Irina Svetlova. At the Academy she was the recipient of prizes in violin and chamber music competitions. She has ARTARIA EDITIONS LTD acted as the concertmistress of the Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and was a member of I Fiamminghi PO Box 9836 (Belgium). During the 1997/98 season she was principal of the second violin section of the Kibbutz Chamber Te Aro Orchestra. Wellington NEW ZEALAND Shuli Waterman http://www.artaria.com Shuli Waterman was born in Haifa and studied the viola with Gad Levertov and with Yuri Gandelsman at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. She completed her studies with John White at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She was the winner of the Theodore Holland Viola Prize at the Royal Acadmy and recipient of String Quartet in F major, Op. 14 No. 1 the Daniel Binyamini Scholarship at the Rubin Academy. She graduated from the Rubin Academy in 1997. She has Edited by Dianne James – Artaria Editions played with the Young Israel Philharmonic, Jeunesses Musicales, and Shira Festival Orchestras, and has AE171 participated in master classes with Rivka Golani, Tabea Zimmerman and Jerzy Ko‰mala, and appeared with members of the Apple Hill Chamber Music Players in Venice and Amman. String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 14 No. 2 Edited by Dianne James – Artaria Editions Iris Jortner AE172 Iris Jortner was born in Tel Aviv and began her cello studies with Uri Vardi at the age of nine, later studying with Uzi Wiesel, Aldo Parisot, Paul Katz and Bernard Greenhouse. She graduated from the Eastman School of Music in String Quartet in D minor, Op. 14 No. 3 1995. Iris Jortner has participated in festivals at Banff, Tanglewood, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar Edited by Dianne James – Artaria Editions with Alexander Schneider, A Classical Winter in Jerusalem, Rolandseck PRO Festival (Germany) and the Bach AE170 Aria Group Festival. She has participated in master classes with Janos Starker, Joseph Gingold, Isaac Stern, Menahem Pressler, and members of the Cleveland, Muir, and Guarneri String Quartets. She is the recipient of the Performer of Connecticut award in 1990, and won prizes at Tanglewood in 1996 and 1997. 8.555952 5 6 8.555952 555952bk Hoffmeister US 25/7/03 3:31 PM Page 2 Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754-1812) as the composer’s newest works. They were dedicated three quartets with its use of the minor key and a four- Aviv String Quartet String Quartets, Op. 14 to M. Joseph de Preuer Senior, a lawyer resident in movement structure. The first movement begins quietly Sergey Ostrovsky, Violin I • Evgenia Epshtein, Violin II • Shuli Waterman, Viola Linz. Although modest in scope and emotional depth, with a series of plaintive gestures from the first violin, Iris Jortner, Cello Franz Anton Hoffmeister was born in Rothenburg am Until 1805 Hoffmeister kept both the Viennese and the all three works reveal Hoffmeister as a craftsman of lightly supported by the three lower voices. The cello Neckar in May 1754. At the age of fourteen he arrived Leipzig publishing house going, but in March 1805 he refined musical sensibilities. They show a clear grasp of restates this material before turning the music towards The Aviv Quartet was founded in 1997 and in Vienna to study law, but was soon so entranced by transferred sole ownership of the Bureau de Musique to the conversational style of the genre, as cultivated dominant harmony, and a rather aggressive, almost has appeared at many venues throughout the city’s rich and varied musical life that, upon Kühnel. His interest in the Viennese firm was waning especially by Haydn, and reveal a kinship with the defiant, half-close on an A major chord. An elliptical Israel, including the Jerusalem Music Center graduating, he decided to devote his life to music. By too, for in 1806, apparently to allow time for Mozartian string quartet style in their translucent resolution into F major follows; a new theme, serenely (Mishkenot Shaananim), the Jaffa Music the 1780s he had become one of the city’s most popular composition, he sold his business to the Chemische scoring and easy melodiousness. Taken together, the elegant and delicately scored, initiates this longer, more Center Israel Festival, and the Tel-Aviv composers, with an extensive and varied list of works to Druckerey. freshness and vitality of all three Op. 14 Quartets make discursive part of the movement. Quicker triplet Museum of Arts. In 1998 the quartet his credit. As a composer Hoffmeister was highly respected them worthwhile additions to the eighteenth-century movement soon invades both theme and participated in the summer course given by Hoffmeister’s reputation today, however, rests by his contemporaries. This is evident from the entry in Viennese quartet repertoire. accompaniment, and the exposition ends triumphantly. members of the Amadeus Quartet at the almost exclusively on his activities as a music Gerber’s Neues Lexikon der Tonkünstler published The F major Quartet is the most extrovert of the The development is substantial and unfolds in several Royal Academy of Music in London, and in publisher. In 1785 he established one of Vienna’s first around the time of his death in 1812: set, and the only one to include quasi orchestral textures distinct phases, and the recapitulation takes place in June that year was the Israeli representative music publishing businesses, second only to Artaria If you were to take a glance at his many and in the outer movements. The first movement is a large, D major and is not without drama, especially when the at the Encounters chamber music course in & Co, which had ventured into this field only five years varied works, then you would have to admire the discursive sonata-form structure, prefaced by a two-bar key of B minor threatens just before the second subject Jerusalem under the direction of Isaac Stern earlier. Over the next fifteen years Hoffmeister issued diligence and the cleverness of this composer.... He upbeat gesture, setting off the delicate chromatic reprise. The slow movement is a set of variations in the and with the participation of members of the Emerson and Juilliard Quartets. In July 1998 Aviv performed as the works by many prominent Viennese composers earned for himself a well-deserved and widespread appoggiature that are such a feature of the main theme. key of A major. At its heart is a self-contained section resident quartet at the Kfar Blum Festival (Upper Galilee Chamber Music Festival). Since 1999 the Aviv Quartet amongst them Albrechtsberger, Clementi, Emanuel reputation through the original content of his The lengthy development is characterized by restless in the minor key where the quiet, understated elegance has performed regularly in international venues, such as the Auditorium Louvre in Paris and Wigmore Hall in Aloys Förster, Pleyel, Wanhal and Paul Wranitzky. works, which are not only rich in emotional modulations and quickly changing textures. A strong of the preceding theme and variation is swept abruptly London. In addition to participating in the Amadeus Quartet Week, the Aviv Quartet has participated in master Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn are all represented in his expression but also distinguished by the interesting sense of unity results from the recurrence of a pervasive aside by a dramatic, almost Schubertian, repeated-note classes given by Ivri Gitlis, Levon Chilingirian, Henry Meyer, Arnold Steinhardt and Miriam Fried. From October vast catalogue, Mozart by several important first and suitable use of instruments and through good pulsing hammer-stroke motif. The following Poco motif scored for the full quartet. Several similar violent 1998, the Aviv Quartet studied with the members of the Alban Berg Quartet in Cologne, and in the Royal School of editions including the Piano Quartet in G minor, practicability. For this last trait we have to thank adagio movement is a gentle siciliano whose simple outbursts follow before the return of the major key for Music at Rotterdam with Ben-Zion Shamir. All Quartet members are recipients of scholarships from the America- K. 478, and the single String Quartet in D, K. 499, the his knowledge of instruments, which is so evident harmonic foundation is enriched by subtle and the concluding section of the movement.