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Anthony Marwood, violin & Thomas Adès, piano Saturday, November 8, 8pm |
—Los Angeles Times
Program
STRAVINSKY:
Suite Italienne (arr. Pulcinella)
Pastorale
Song of the Nightingale and Chinese March from The Nightingale
Duo Concertant
Berceuse, Scherzo and Prelude et Ronde des Princesses from The Firebird
Chanson Russe (Russian Maiden’s Song)
Divertimento
Danse Russe from Petrushka
ENCORE:
STRAVINSKY: Tango
About This Performance
The composer/performer pairing of Igor Stravinsky and violinist Samuel Dushkin was one of modern history’s most celebrated. Their relationship is paralleled by one of the most accomplished contemporary duos, Anthony Marwood and Thomas Adès, who brilliantly bring Stravinsky and Dushkin’s legacy to life. Thomas Adès returns following a triumphant San Francisco Performances debut in 2007 and Anthony Marwood makes his debut after enormous success performing Adès’ Violin Concerto on tour in 2006.
Artist Biography
In May 2006 Anthony Marwood was named Instrumentalist of the Year at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, the first string player to receive this honour in more than a decade, and confirming him as one of the most sought-after and versatile violinists of his generation.
Engagements in the 2006/7 season included a tour of Germany as soloist/director with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Barbican and the Edinburgh Festival, the London Philharmonic at the South Bank, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Paris, and the NDR Hamburg. Engagements in the current season and beyond include concertos with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Philharmonia, CBSO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Colorado Symphony and Warsaw Philharmonic, as well as two US tours with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. He will return to the BBC Proms in September of this year.
In January 2006 he became Artistic Director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and of the Shannon International Music Festival. In summer 2006 he took part in a major tour as soloist/director with the Australian Chamber Orchestra—and will return there in 2009. He is a regular collaborator with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (their first CD together winning high praise), and in summer 2005 his passion for theatre resulted in a UK tour with the Academy of a fully staged production of Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale, in which he acted the role of the Soldier as well as playing the violin part—his performance, directed by Lawrence Evans, was picked as one of the cultural highlights of 2005 by the Daily Telegraph. The production was revived to great acclaim in November 2007.
He has had many works written for him, including Sally Beamish's 1995 concerto, subsequently televised for BBC4 and recorded on the BIS label. Thomas Adès's concerto Concentric Paths, which he premiered in September 2005 in Berlin and at the BBC Proms is the result of a fruitful musical partnership with the composer. He has since performed the work on numerous occasions giving the US premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the French premiere in Paris with the CBSO, and the Russian premiere in St Petersburg. His recording of the work on EMI, with the composer conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, has been garnering extraordinary reviews and is Gramophone Magazine’s Recording of the Month in March 2008. Adès and Marwood are touring a programme of all Stravinsky's music for violin and piano which they will record later in 2008. In the 2009-10 season Marwood will premiere two new concertos written for him, one by American composer Steve Mackey (a concerto for violin and electric guitar, commissioned jointly by the ASMF and the ICO) and one from New Zealander Ross Harris, with the NZSO.
Anthony Marwood’s recordings include Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on BMG, but he also enjoys performing and recording more unusual works. He has made acclaimed recordings on the Hyperion label of sonata repertoire with the pianist Susan Tomes of Dvorak (Classic CD Award), Schumann (Gramophone Award nomination) and concertos by Stanford (Gramophone Award nomination), Coleridge-Taylor and Somervell, and with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, concertos by Kurt Weill and Peteris Vasks, “performed with blistering intensity and astonishing accuracy” BBC Radio 3 CD Review. He is the violinist of the celebrated Florestan Trio (the first trio to win a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, in 2000) and he performs all over the world with his colleagues Richard Lester and Susan Tomes. They have recorded much of the mainstream trio repertoire on Hyperion, many of them becoming benchmark performances. The Florestan Trio also has its own Florestan Festival at Peasmarsh, an annual event in June.
Anthony Marwood enjoys teaching and each summer attends the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont, where students and faculty perform together in a rural setting.
He plays on a beautiful violin by Carlo Bergonzi (1736), kindly bought by a syndicate of purchasers.
As composer, conductor and pianist, Thomas Adès has collaborated with great artists, orchestras and opera companies internationally. During the 2006/2007 season, he will conduct a revival of his opera The Tempest at the Royal Opera, play piano recitals in Los Angeles and San Francisco, conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic and preside over a festival of his music at the Barbican Centre in London. Adès continues as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival as well.
The Los Angeles Times recently described Adès’ coming of age as an influential figure in contemporary classical music: “In England, Adès is not just known—he's a major force in the country's musical life. He is an emotive conductor with much to say.” In addition to being an esteemed interpreter of his own original music, Adès’ performances and recordings of composers including Kurtág, Janácek, Nancarrow, Schumann, Schubert, Ruders, Tchaikovsky and Gerald Barry have been critically acclaimed.
Born in London, Adès studied piano at the Guildhall School of Music and music at King's College, Cambridge. From 1993 to 1995 he served as Composer in Association with the Hallé Orchestra, a collaboration that resulted in The Origin of the Harp (1994), and These Premises Are Alarmed for the opening of the Bridgewater Hall in 1996. His next piece, Asyla (1997), was a commission for Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Rattle subsequently programmed Asyla in his opening concert as Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic in September 2002—an occasion that was recorded on DVD and broadcast on international television and radio.
Adès’ first opera, Powder Her Face has been performed around the world and The Tempest was commissioned by the Royal Opera House and premiered there under the baton of the composer to great critical acclaim. His innovative and highly unique works have attracted numerous awards and prizes, including the 1997 Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for Asyla; the 2000 Grawemeyer Award for Asyla (the largest international prize for composition, here awarded to the youngest recipient); and the 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for The Tempest. Adès records exclusively as composer, pianist and conductor with EMI Classics.
Thomas Adès’ music has attracted numerous awards and prizes, including the Paris Rostrum for the best piece by a composer under 30 (1994); the 1997 Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for Asyla; the Elise L Stoeger Prize for Arcadiana (New York, 1998); the Salzburg Easter Festival Prize (1999); the Munich Ernst von Siemens Prize for Young Composers (1999); the 2000 Grawemeyer Award for Asyla (the largest international prize for composition, here awarded to the youngest recipient); and the Hindemith Prize (2001). The Asyla EMI CD won a coveted Mercury Music Prize and was the only classical album to be shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize Record of the Year.
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