Anthony Marwood & Aleksandar Madžar
Violin and Piano
British violinist Anthony Marwood and Serbian pianist Aleksandar Madžar will make their Washington, DC, debut with selections by Janáček, Beethoven, Ravel, and Prokofiev.
Program
British violinist Anthony Marwood is a versatile musician, working regularly as a soloist and in chamber ensembles, recording extensively—particularly as a member of the Florestan Trio. He plays a large repertoire, including works composed for him by Thomas Ades and Sally Beamish. For this recital he is joined by Serbian pianist Aleksandar Madžar, a distinguished soloist who came to prominence after winning third prize at the 1996 Leeds Piano Competition and who has worked extensively as a chamber musician in collaborations with Marwood and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Their program frames Beethoven and Ravel with two 20th-century classics: the passionate and intense sonata by Janaček and Prokofiev’s joyous Sonata No. 2, originally for flute but reworked by the composer for David Oistrakh.
PROGRAM:
LEOŠ JANÁČEK (1854-1928)
Violin Sonata (1914)
Con moto
Ballada
Allegretto
Adagio
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Sonata for violin and piano No. 7 in C minor, Op. 30/2 (1801)
Allegro con brio
Adagio cantabile
Scherzo. Allegro – Trio
Finale. Allegro
Intermission
MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937)
Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor (op. posth) (1897)
SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94a (1943)
Moderato
Presto - Poco piu mosso del - Tempo I
Andante
Allegro con brio - Poco meno mosso - Tempo I - Poco meno mosso - Allegro con brio
About the Artists
Anthony Marwood performs worldwide as soloist with many notable orchestras, and enjoys regular collaborations with Les Violons du Roy in Canada (he currently holds a three-year position as Principal Artistic Partner), the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (Artistic Partner in the 2016-17 season), Tapiola Sinfonietta in Finland, Australian Chamber Orchestra and the St Louis Symphony in the USA. He has worked with conductors including Valery Gergiev, Sir Andrew Davis, Thomas Søndergård, David Robertson, Gerard Korsten, Ilan Volkov, Jaime Martin and Douglas Boyd. In 2015 he toured with the New Zealand, Sydney, Tasmanian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, and this year makes his debut with the New World Symphony in Miami, returns to A Far Cry in Boston, and appears at Festivals in Sanguine Estate in Australia, Lockenhaus in Austria, Bridgehampton, New York and Lanaudière in Quebec, where he will perform Beethoven’s violin concerto. Further ahead, he will make his débuts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra, and will tour both the United States and Europe with Les Violons du Roy. He also returns to the Amsterdam Sinfonietta for a Dutch tour and will perform Brahms’ Double Concerto with Alexander Rudin at Tchaikowsky Hall in Moscow. His regular chamber music partners include Thomas Ades, Martin Fröst, Steven Isserlis, Lawrence Power and Aleksandar Madžar. In the 2014-15 season he was a featured artist at London’s Wigmore Hall. Anthony has made more than 30 CDs for the Hyperion label, both as soloist and as a former member of the Florestan Trio; he has also recorded for EMI, BIS and Wigmore Live. His latest recording for Hyperion, of Walton’s violin concerto, will be released in the near future. Many composers have written concertos for him, including Thomas Adès, Steven Mackey, Sally Beamish and, most recently, the young American Samuel Carl Adams. Anthony was named Instrumentalist of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2006, and made a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2013. He is co-director of the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival with cellist Richard Lester and appears annually at the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont. Anthony has a close association with the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne and the Pettman National Junior Academy in Auckland. His teachers have included Emanuel Hurwitz and David Takeno. He plays on a 1736 violin by Carlo Bergonzi.
Born in Belgrade in 1968, Aleksandar Madžar first studied piano with Gordana Matinovic, Arbo Valdma and Eliso Virsaladze in Belgrade and Moscow, then with Edouard Mirzoian at the Strasbourg Conservatory and in Brussels with Daniel Blumenthal. He now holds professorships at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire, Brussels and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Bern.
In 2008/09 Madžar maintains his schedule of diverse performance activities taking him world wide: in recital he returns to Tokyo, as also to Paris, Théâtre de la Ville, Cardiff and the Vlaanders Festival. With Stuttgart Philharmonic he performs in Milan´s Conservatorio G Verdi, returns to the Irish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Belfast Symphony and Belgrade Philharmonic.
Various select partnerships are key to Aleksandar Madžar´s current performance schedule. His partnership with violinist Ilya Gringolts sees them next perform a complete Beethoven cycle at the 2008 Verbier Festival and, following the world premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies´ Violin Sonata at St Magnus and Cheltenham Festivals in summer 2008, recitalsat Prague and Beethovenfest Bonn Festivals. His partnership with soprano Juliane Banse continues next season with a tour of Spain to Bilbao, Valencia, Leon and Lisbon´s Gulbenkian Foundation.
After a successfull cooperation with the Irish Chamber Orchestra´s 2007 summer festival, under the Artistic leadership of colleague Anthony Marwood the two further collaborate in recital in Edinburgh, and future plans include a cycle at the Wigmore Hall.
Other notable highlights will include his recital debut in Amsterdam´s Concertgebouw Hall and a return in recital to the Wigmore Hall, London.