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Musique d’Espoir 

Pour la cérémonie de clôture du festival 2022, plusieurs musiciens du Conservatoire de Bâle et pianistes résidents du festival Stefano Greco se produiront en trio avec piano. 

Lors de cet événement, Richard Danielpour nous présentera son élève de neuf ans, George Alexander Socolow, qui a écrit un grand nombre d’oeuvres exceptionnelles. Il est en effet l’espoir de demain 

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Variations Goldberg 

Stefano G nous emmène dans un voyage à travers l’une des compositions les plus intrigantes de l’ère pré-classique. Les variations de Goldberg font partie d’une oeuvre qui nécessite un plan stratégique pour que l’auditeur gagne en clarté. Pour nous permettre de mieux comprendre, Stefano nous apporte quelques éléments de réponse pour comprendre les intentions que Bach a gravées dans les indications et marquages de la pièce. 

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STEFANO GRECO

A versatile and visionary artist, Stefano Greco takes piano interpretation to a new frontier. He starts from a philological reading of the musical scores and expresses creative freedom by interpreting the non-coded elements. In order to produce a spirited music, as alive as if it was conceived in the same moment of the performance, Greco transforms himself into the composer. “For Stefano Greco's sensibility allows him to calibrate sound in a stupefying manner, as if he had invented it within the very moment of execution.” (M. Abbado)

Greco has just recorded for Naxos a new album, dedicated to the Grammy winner composer Richard Danielpour, which includes the first recording of his Piano Fantasy, his 12 Etudes for piano and two transcriptions from a new Opera that the composer is still writing. This album will be released in September and will be distributed internationally.

Specialist in Bach’s music, he has been invited to perform his music in the most prestigious concert halls and in historic events: the Festival of Castleton, created by Lorin Maazel, after Maestro’s death, started the new season with a concert in his memory and honor, in which Greco performed J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations. Ms. Turban Maazel commented: “[...] In the tradition of the grand interpreters such as Glenn Gould, Wilhelm Kempff and Murray Perahia, Stefano Greco has created his own very personal concept while remaining a deeply respectful and true Bach scholar. I am enthusiastic about presenting this extraordinary pianist in Castleton [...]”

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Grammy-Award winning composer Richard Danielpour has established himself as one of the most gifted and sought-after composers of his generation. His music has attracted an international and illustrious array of champions, and, as a devoted mentor and educator, he has also had a significant impact on the younger generation of composers. His list of commissions include some of the most celebrated artists of our day including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, Gary Graffman, Anthony McGill, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Guarneri and Emerson String Quartets, the New York City, Pacific Northwest and Nashville Ballets, and institutions such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Maryinsky and Vienna Chamber Orchestras, Orchestre National de France, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and many more. With Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Danielpour created Margaret Garner, his first opera, which premiered in 2005 and had a second production with New York City Opera. He has received two awards from the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters, a Guggenheim Award, the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, two Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, and The Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. He served on the composition faculty of Manhattan School of Music from 1993 to 2017. Danielpour recently relocated to Los Angeles where he has accepted the position of Professor of Music at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. He is also a member of the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music where he has taught since 1997.

 

In July of 2018, Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua, a 100 minute passion oratorio in Hebrew and English, commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the SDG Foundation, was premiered at the Oregon Bach Festival with JoAnn Faletta conducting. The work was then performed in December at Royce Hall in Los Angeles with the UCLA Philharmonia and Chorus led by music director Neal Stulberg and choral director James Bass. Finally, in April 2019, JoAnn Faletta lead the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus in performances of The Passion of Yeshua, where it was recorded by Naxos. The album was released in March of 2020 to critical acclaim and is currently considered for three separate GRAMMYs, including best contemporary classical composition. 2020 ended with the premiere of An American Mosaic with pianist Simone Dinnerstein. The piece, which consists of 15 miniatures, pays homage to groups effected by the pandemic in unique ways and was virtually premiered in connection with the Oregon Bach Festival. 2021 will once again see new and innovative works, the most significant of them being A Standing Witness, a series of 14 songs which are settings of poems written by celebrated poet Rita Dove. Composed for mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and Music from Copland House, this one-hour work which witnesses the last 50 years of our American history will be premiered in several cities beginning in the summer of 2021.

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George Alexander Socolow is in fourth grade at Nord Anglia International School in NYC. He is a contemporary classical composer working with Richard Danielpour, Daniel Felsenfeld and Ronn Yedidia. He also studies classical piano with Stefano Greco. George won the national young maestro competition (2020) and was recognized as an emerging composer by TriBeCa New Music for his original Paganini Variations (2021) and given an honorable mention for his Duets for Violin and Cello (2022). He recently premiered excerpts from his opera Romeo and Juliet at the Slovakian ambassador’s home, playing for the spouses of permanent UN representatives. George has been composing for four years and joined the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composer’s Program in 2022. 
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KATARINA LESKOVAR

Katarina Leskovar is performing internationally as a soloist, chamber and orchestra musician and is a recipient of various international prizes. She is a performer that is constantly seeking parallels between old and new, past and present and is therefore working across a diverse array of musical branches. She has performed at the festivals including Warsaw Autumn, Klangspuren Festival, Davos Festival, Carinthischer Sommer, Festival Ljubljana, Kammermusikfestival Hohenstaufen in Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Semperoper Dresden, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris and The Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In 2019 she undertook an internship with Basel Sinfonietta. Katarina has premiered pieces by Beat Furrer, Judit Varga, Uroš Rojko and many others. She has also been a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester with concerts conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, Jonathan Nott and Christian Thielemann as part of the joint project with Staatskapelle Dresden. Katarina performed as a soloist with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra and participated in masterclasses with Heinz Holliger, members of Ensemble Modern, Ivry Gitlis, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Torleif Thedeen, Wen-Sinn Yang and others. She is a student at the Hochschule für Musik Basel where she finished the Master of Performance in the class of Danjulo Ishizaka and is now finishing her second master studies specializing in contemporary chamber music with the ensemble zone expérimentale. 

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DMITRY SMIRNOV

Over the past, 2 years Dmitry was invited as a soloist by the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra Saint-Petersbourg, the Moscow Philharmonic State and the Chamber Orchestra of Moscow, the Lucerne Festival Strings, the Sinfonieorchester Basel, the Argovia Philharmonic and others with Concertos by Haydn, Mozart, Nielsen, Schumann, Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Bernstein, Lloyd Webber. 

 

He was among the “Jeunes Etoiles” at Gstaad Menuhin Festival 2019. In the season 2021-22 his schedule includes also the performance of Mozart Violin Concerto on historical instruments with Accademia Theresia conducted by Giovanni Antonini, chamber music with Sol Gabetta at SOLsberg Festival, the Debut recital with pianist Marco Scilironi in LAC for LuganoMusica on 21. April 2021 as well as a Debut solo recital during Lucerne Festival on 19. August 2021. Still in 2021 he releases his first CD with works by Bach and Bartok (FHR London).

 

He has been working with Heinz Holliger for “Swiss Chamber Concerts”, with  Giovanni Antonini for “Haydn 2032 Project”, with the Kelemen Quartet and the ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro. 

In 2018 he founded his own chamber ensemble, the “Camerata Rhein” in Basel for experimental and film music performances.

Dmitry Smirnov est né dans une famille de musiciens à Saint-Petersbourg en 1994 et a commencé son éducation musicale auprès de ses parents. 

 

Il est lauréat des concours ARD Munich 2021 (2ème Prix, GEWA et GENUIN Prix), Long-Thibaud-Crespin en 2018 (3ème Grand Prix), de la Tibor Varga Violin Competition en 2015 (1er Prix) et de la Menuhin Violin Competition en 2008 (2ème Prix).

Il se perfectionne lors de masterclasses avec Irvine Arditti, Vadim Gluzman, Gabor Takacs et a étudié auprès de Pavel Vernikov au Conservatoire de Lausanne et Rainer Schmidt à l’Académie de musique de Bâle.


Il collabore avec Heinz Holliger pour les “Swiss Chamber Concerts”, avec Giovanni Antonini et Il Giardino Armonico pour le “Projet Haydn 2032”, avec Sol Gabetta au SOLsberg Festival de Musique de chambre. En 2018 il crée son propre ensemble de musique de chambre «Camerata Rhein» basé à Bâle. 

 

En 2019 il est Jeune Etoile au Gstaad Menuhin Festival, en 2021 il débute au Lucerne Festival e à LuganoMusica. En 2021 également il publie son premier CD avec des œuvres pour violon solo de Bach et Bartok (FHR Londres).

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