PRESS RELEASE Arabella Steinbacher performs Tchaikovsky’s sublime concerto on her 1716 Stradivarius at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall Orchestra with Arabella Steinbacher Sunday Classics at Usher Hall, Edinburgh 3:00pm, Sunday 27 May 2018

Arabella Steinbacher. Photo by Peter Rigaud IMAGES HERE Tchikovsky's sublime part of intoxicating all-Russian programme “Steinbacher was wonderful to watch as she carried the melody up to angelic heights, then let it meander down like a falling feather” **** Bachtrack on Arabella Steinbacher The Dresden Philharmonic was founded in 1870, and from the outset brought an expressive musical spirit to the city. The orchestra offers great musical and stylistic variety - on the one hand, the orchestra has been able to retain its very own “German” sound in the Romantic repertoire, but has also developed flexibility of sound and style for Baroque and Viennese Classic music and modern works. This grand old orchestra makes a welcome return to the Usher Hall with an intoxicating all-Russian programme.

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is one of the most important works for the instrument in the Romantic repertoire. It is widely considered to have been inspired by his own music theory pupil- Joseph Kotek, who Tchaikovsky was very close with. It was never officially dedicated to Kotek, however, the reason as he confided to his publisher was “… in order to avoid gossip of various kinds".

Shostakovich wrote his fifth symphony in the shadow of Stalin’s oppressive communist regime. Despite the circumstances, when he premiered the work it was received extremely well and is now probably the best-loved of the composer’s symphonies. Covering the full gamut of emotions, it’s said that at the first performance members of the audience cried during the emotional third movement. Best bring a hanky just in case.

Arabella Steinbacher is making her Usher Hall debut and brings her charismatic and energetic performance style to this hugely popular work, with the beautiful tone of her 1716 Stradivarius coming into its own. Steinbacher began studying violin at the age of three, and became the youngest violin student of Ana Chumachenko at the Academy of Music at only 9 years old. She is now known as one of today’s leading violinists since her extraordinary 2004 debut with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Sir Neville Marriner in Paris.

Joining the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra for a pre-concert talk will be BBC Broadcaster and composer Stephen Johnson. His appearance is in support of his new book ‘How Shostakovich changed my Mind’, published 2 April by Notting Hill Editions. The book explores the power of Shostakovich’s music during Stalin’s reign of terror, and relates how it gave form to the fears and hopes of an oppressed nation. Johnson writes of the extraordinary healing effect of music on sufferers of mental illness and tells of how the music of Shostakovich gave him unexpected strength during his struggles with bipolar disorder since adolescence.

Listings Information

Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra with Arabella Steinbacher

Sunday Classics at the Usher Hall

Door time: 2:00pm

Start time: 3:00pm

Tchaikovsky Polonaise from Eugene Onegin Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Shostakovich Symphony No.5

Michael Sanderling conductor Arabella Steinbacher violin

Tickets available at: www.usherhall.co.uk/sunday-classics Prices

Tickets £34, £28, £23, £17 and £12.50

/ENDS

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SUNDAY CLASSICS AT USHER HALL

Further concerts this season:

 Maxim Vengerov with Würth Philharmonic | 3 June

Book 5 or more concerts in the 2017-18 season (8 Oct 2017 - 3 June 2018) to become a member of the Sunday Classics Club. As a member you can take advantage of the following benefits.

 Sunday Classics Club Membership Card  Free Sunday Classics concert programmes on concert day  Complimentary tea/coffee at Sunday Classics concerts  Flexible ticket exchange scheme*  Invitation to special Sunday Classics Club Party  15% discount on the Sheraton Hotel’s Sunday Lunch**  Complimentary glass of Prosecco when booking the Sheraton Hotel’s afternoon tea**

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DRESDEN PHILHARMONIC The Dresden Philharmonic is the orchestra of Dresden, the State Capital of Saxony. Since 2011, Michael Sanderling has been its Principal Conductor, following , , Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and others in this position. The Dresden Philharmonic continues the tradition of the Ratsmusik, the city council’s musicians who were first mentioned in the fifteenth century and had grown into an orchestra by the early nineteenth century. Since 1870, the year when Dresden got its first great concert hall, the Philharmonic’s symphony concerts have been an established part of the city’s concert life. The Dresden Philharmonic has ever since been a concert orchestra with regular ventures into the fields of opera concertante and oratorios. It is housed in the Kulturpalast in the middle of the Old Town. The listed shell of the building will be built-in with a new, ultra-modern concert hall by 2017. Until then, the main venues for the Philharmonic’s great concerts are the Albertinum and the Schauspielhaus.

The Dresden Philharmonic offers great musical and stylistic variety. On the one hand, the orchestra has been able to retain its very own “German” sound in the Romantic repertoire. On the other hand, it has developed flexibility of sound and style for Baroque and Viennese Classic music as well as for modern works. Renowned conductors and composers headed the orchestra early on, from Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák and to Erich Kleiber and Knappertsbusch, Previn and Marriner, to and Kristjan Järvi. Premieres remain an important part of the orchestra’s programme today.

The Dresden Philharmonic joins the Dresden Kreuzchor for the Christmas and Easter Bach performances at the Kreuzkirche. For the great choral symphonies the orchestra can rely on the Dresden Philharmonic Choir as an excellent partner. Another important tradition is chamber music and chamber symphonies performed by the Dresden Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, all of whose musicians come from the Dresden Philharmonic. Not only does the Dresden Philharmonic enjoy an extraordinarily large number of regular subscribers; with its family programmes, film music concerts etc. it does a great job in introducing to new groups of listeners. Guest performances all over the world are testimony to the high renown the Dresden Philharmonic enjoys in the world of classical music. Another remarkable aspect is the Philharmonic’s impressive discography which started to develop in 1937. A new paired cycle of symphonies of and under the direction of Principal Conductor Michael Sanderling is currently recorded. Sony Classical has released the debut album of the fascinating combination of the Symphonies No. 6 in November 2015.

ARABELLA STEINBACHER

Outstanding, internationally honored violinist Arabella Steinbacher is known as one of today’s leading violinists since back in 2004 when giving her extraordinary debut with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Sir Neville Marriner in Paris.

Defined by a diverse repertoire, she plays not only all major classical and romantic violin concertos but also those of Bartók, Berg, Glazunov, Katchaturian, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Schnittke. Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Hindemith, Hartmann and Sofia Gubaidulinas Offertorium to name a few.

In Germany Arabella Steinbacher is frequently playing with almost every leading orchestra including the BR Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic and the NDR Symphony Orchestra. Conductors such as the late , Christoph von Dohnányi, , , , , Marek Janowski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and accompany her way.

Arabella Steinbacher appears with the leading international orchestras including , Boston Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, , Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C., San Francisco Symphony, , Seattle Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Sao Paulo Symphony, Orchestra National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Vienna Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra. Her debuts at the Salzburger Festspiele, at the “Proms” in London at Royal Albert Hall and at the New York Carnegie Hall have been praised by international press.

In the season 2015/16 Arabella Steinbacher continued her collaboration with Festival Strings Lucerne as Principal Guest Artist. Besides touring with them throughout Italy, she is also on tour with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen throughout Switzerland. She will debut with Los Angeles Philharmonic under Andrew Manze at Hollywood Bowl, play both of Prokofiev’s violin concertos with RSB Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Marek Janowski and collaborate with WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne at the Dresden Music Festival. Other highlights include performances with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedosejew at Musikverein Vienna, with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Herbert Blomstedt and Lionel Bringuier in Tokyo as well as a concert at Beethovenfest Bonn with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Juraj Valčuha.

As CARE ambassador Arabella Steinbacher continually supports people in need. In December 2011 she toured through Japan commemorating the tsunami catastrophe of the same year. The DVD “Arabella Steinbacher – Music of Hope” with her recordings of this tour was later released.

Arabella Steinbacher’s latest album „Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky – Violin Concertos“ with Orchestre Philharmonique de la Suisse Romande and Charles Dutoit was released by the label Classics in June 2015. Since starting to record exclusively for Pentatone in 2009, she published a number of albums demonstrating her musical variety. In 2009 her first CD with Dvorák's Violin Concerto in A Minor, Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1 and Dvorák's Romance in F Minor with the RSB Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra led by Marek Janowski was published and won her the second ECHO Klassik Award since 2007. Recordings of both of Bartók’s violin concertos with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, also under Marek Janowski, and of the Brahms’ violin sonatas, a collaboration with pianist Robert Kulek, followed. In fall 2012 her recording of violin concertos by Prokofiev came out and in April 2013 Arabella Steinbacher released her CD with Bruch’s and Korngold’s violin concertos as well as 2014 “Sonatas for Violin and Piano by César Franck and Richard Strauss” with Robert Kulek. Her “Mozart Violin Concertos 3, 4 & 5” CD with Festival Strings Lucerne was nominated for the Gramophone Award as recording of the year 2014. Arabella Steinbacher's numerous recording honors also include “Les Chocs du Mois” from Le Monde de la Musique and two German Record Critics Awards. In 2015 she was nominated for the prestigious Editors Choice Award from the Gramophone Magazine.

Beginning to study violin at the age of three, Arabella Steinbacher became the youngest violin student of Ana Chumachenko at the Munich Academy of Music with only nine years. A source of musical inspiration and guidance has also been to her.

Arabella Steinbacher is currently playing the "Booth" Stradivari from 1716 generously loaned by the Nippon Music Foundation.

MICHAEL SANDERLING Michael Sanderling has been Principal Conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic since 2011. He is also a sought-after guest conductor and directs renowned orchestras such as the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokio, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Germany’s great radio orchestras. Born in Berlin, Michael Sanderling is one of the few who worked their way up through the ranks of orchestral musicians to the top league of conductors. In 1987, aged 20, he became a cello soloist at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Kurt Masur, then from 1994 to 2006 he held the same position at the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist, he gave guest performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris, to name but a few, and as a passionate chamber musician he was a member of the Ex Aequo trio for eight years. It was at a rehearsal of the Berlin Chamber Orchestra in 2000 that he first stood on the conductor’s podium. Familiar with a conductor’s work from his childhood as the son of legendary Kurt Sanderling, Michael assumed more and more conducting roles and was appointed principal conductor and art director of the renowned Kammerakademie Potsdam in 2006. He enjoyed success as an opera conductor with Philip Glass’ “The Fall of the House of Usher” in Potsdam and with a new production of ’s “War and Peace” at Cologne Opera. As both a cellist and conductor he has made recordings of important works from the repertoire of Dvořák, Schumann, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky to name but a few. The most important thing to Michael Sanderling is working with young musicians. He teaches as a professor at Frankfurt University for Music and Performing Arts and co- operates regularly with the Bundesjugendorchester, the Jerusalem Weimar Youth Orchestra, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra. From 2003 to 2013 he was associated with the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie as its principal conductor. Having been a musician himself, Michael Sanderling is considered to be extremely effective during rehearsals, yet able to generate fire and passion from the musicians during performances. His repertoire is versatile ranging from Bach and Handel to contemporary premieres. He is always seeking to further develop the Dresden Philharmonic’s flexibility of sound and style.