CHANNEL CLASSICS CCS 42320 SilhouettesANNA FEDOROVA PIANO DANA ZEMTSOV VIOLA Debussy | Milhaud | Clarke | Werkman | Enescu Dana Zemtsov Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with conductors such as Conrad van Alphen, Daniel Raiskin, Fabio Mechetti, Otto Tausk and Leif Winner of numerous competitions and developing an outstanding career, Dana Segerstam. International tours brought and continue to bring Dana to Finland, Zemtsov is one of the most promising international viola soloists of her generation. Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Peru and the USA. She participated in the ‘Stars of Highlights include Dana’s performance of the Bartók Viola Concerto in Tallinn, Tomorrow’ tour in Germany. Performing at the main classical music festivals in two concerts of Mozart’s Concertante in the Main Hall of the Concertgebouw the Netherlands such as the Delft Chamber Music Festival, Grachten Festival and Amsterdam with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, playing chamber music the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht, she furthermore appears at with Janine Jansen and Martin Fröst at the Utrecht Chamber Music Festival, and international festivals such as Kuhmo (Finland), Hemsing Festival (Norway), Davos a recital in Carnegie Hall, New York. In 2016 Dana was invited to join the 43rd Festival (Switzerland), West Cork Festival (Ireland) and International Music Festival International Viola Congress as a Guest of Honor together with renowned violists Koblenz (Germany). such as Ettore Causa, Bruno Giuranna and Tabea Zimmermann. In 2012 she Dana was born in 1992 in Mexico City. At the age of five she received her signed an exclusive record deal with Channel Classics Records. Three critically first music lessons from her grandmother and from her parents, both viola players acclaimed albums have been released so far: ‘Enigma’ (2014), ‘Romantic Meta- (Mikhail Zemtsov and Julia Dinerstein). She studied at the Conservatory of Maas- morphoses’ (2015) and ‘Essentia’ (2018). The 2018 release was her first orchestra tricht with the famous viola virtuoso Michael Kugel. recording, with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Raiskin. Dana is 1st Prize laureate of several competitions in Luxembourg, Italy, Anna Fedorova Austria, Germany, Portugal and The Netherlands. In 2010 she won the Dutch competition ‘Evening of the Young Musician’, became the ‘Young Musician of Anna Fedorova is one of the world’s premier pianists. From an early age, she the Year’ and represented The Netherlands at the ‘Eurovision Young Musicians demonstrated an innate musical maturity and astounding technical abilities. Her Competition’ in Vienna. She has also been awarded the prestigious Anton live recording of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto has over 25 million hits on Kersjesprijs 2014 and has been invited to perform at the celebration of the 25th YouTube, which makes it the most watched classical concerto. This recording is anniversary of the Kersjesfonds in the big hall of the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. highly acclaimed by critics and renowned musicians. She regularly performs at the Dana is regularly appearing on the most important international stages, such world’s most prestigious concert halls such as the Royal Concertgebouw Amster- as the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Tivoli Vredenburg Utrecht, St. Peters- dam, the New York Carnegie Hall, Paris Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Palacio burg Philharmonic Hall and Carnegie Hall New York. Dana plays chamber music de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Zurich Tonhalle, the Warsaw Philharmonic, with Janine Jansen, Itzhak Perlman, Pieter Wispelwey, Martin Fröst and Anna Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Sage Gateshead in Newcastle, Cadogan Hall in London Fedorova. and many others. As a soloist, Dana performs with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, In 2018 she signed an exclusive record deal with Channel Classics Records. Sinfonia Rotterdam, Lake Forest Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Three critically acclaimed albums have been released so far: ‘Four Fantasies’ Bergische Symphoniker, St. Michael String Orchestra, Arnhem Philharmonic and (2018), ‘Storyteller’ (2019) and ‘Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 1’ (2020). 2 3 Anna Fedorova and Dana Zemtsov Anna’s engagements included appearances at the Bergen Festival in Norway, Silhouettes Annecy Music Festival in France, Menuhin Festival in Switzerland, Ravinia Festival in the USA as well as performances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Kyoto Do you know that feeling when coming to a new place as if the atmosphere you are in has Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Lamoureaux, the Dallas Symphony Orches- been with you forever, recognizing it like an old friend? Our upbringing was similar, and filled tra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, with Guy de Maupassant, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Jean de La Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Fontaine, Pierre Richard, Louis de Funès, Georges Brassens, Édith Piaf, Charles Trenet. This Philharmonia Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Nordwest- could be a logical explanation for us both experiencing this sense of familiarity every time we deutsche Philharmonie Orchestra, St. Gallen Orchestra and many others. cross the border to France. Or maybe we have lived some of our previous lives in these During the season 2015-2016 Anna was the artist-in-residence in Edesche surroundings that they seem so close to us? Concert Hall in Ede, Netherlands. In 2017 she became the artistic director and This is by no means a story about France. Each piece in this album has its own story, its co-founder of the International Chamber Music Festival Ede, which has resulted own thoughts and feelings. However, throughout it, if you listen with your eyes closed, you will in two successful festivals to date. Highlights of 2019 included engagements with occasionally sense the presence of a furtive silhouette ‘à la Française’. the Philharmonia Orchestra and Utah Symphony Orchestra, Tangos with Marcelo Dana & Anna Nisinman in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, tours in Japan and Brasil with the State Symphony Capella of Russia and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Saved from oblivion respectively, and the Sintra Festival in Portugal. Very few listeners are likely to have ever heard the first composition on this CD. Anna graduated from the Lysenko School of Music in Kyiv, where she studied Yet it is one of the most remarkable pieces of twentieth-century chamber music to with Borys Fedorov, and the Accademia Pianistica in Imola, where she studied have originated from England: the Sonata for viola and piano, dating from 1919, with Leonid Margarius. Anna received her master’s degree and artist diploma written by Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979). Born of an American father and German at the Royal College of Music in London under the guidance of Norma Fisher. mother, she was a contemporary of Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky and Béla She has also been receiving regular artistic guidance from András Schiff, Steven Bartók. She grew up in England, studied the violin, and became the first female Isserlis and Menahem Pressler. composition pupil of Sir Charles Stanford (who taught Holst, Vaughan Williams and Bridge) at the Royal College of Music. After commencing as a violinist, on Stanford’s advice Clarke switched to the viola and went on to pursue a successful career as a soloist and chamber musician. As a violist she was the only female player in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under the conductor Henry Wood. She earned her livelihood through numerous concert appearances in England and the USA, where she spent the last forty years of her life. Rebecca Clarke was befriended with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst, and performed with celebrated players including Myra Hess, Pablo Casals, Arthur Rubinstein, Jacques Thibaud, Percy Grainger, Jascha Heifetz, Bronislaw Hubermann, Arthur Schnabel, 6 7 Joseph Szigeti and Jelly d’Arányi. This goes to explain why her own oeuvre con- The ‘old’ suite in a modern coat sists largely of chamber music. The Sonata for viola and piano and the Piano Trio The programme jumps forward a hundred years to the Suite for viola and piano by are even among her most recorded compositions. the contemporary composer Arne Werkman, born in The Hague in 1960. He grew Although Clarke described the Viola Sonata as “that one little whiff of success up in Geneva and in France, studying at the Geneva Conservatory and the city’s that I’ve had in my life”, the work met with scepticism when it was published in university (musicology and the humanities). In the early 1990s he pursued his 1921 – “the rumour went around that I hadn’t written the stuff myself”, Clarke composition studies with Tristan Keuris at the Utrecht Conservatory. As a pianist recalled. A critic had suggested that her name was really a pseudonym for Ernest Arne Werkman has given recitals in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France and the Bloch! “Perhaps in the old days people used to think it wasn’t quite nice for a Netherlands. He taught music history and theory at the Hellendaal Violin Institute girl to compose!”, Rebecca Clarke wrote in a draft of a lecture ‘The Woman in Rotterdam (2003-2005) and elsewhere. His music is frequently performed in the Composer – Then and Now’ in 1945. In 1919 she had submitted here Viola Netherlands and abroad. In 1992 Werkman took the initiative to compose music Sonata for the Coolidge Composition Competition under the pseudonym