The Apollon Musagète Quartet cuts a striking presence on stage.  They perform standing up and embody intense energy and dramatic expression of the music.  Unlike many groups from Eastern Europe (they are Polish) they are very much at home in the central Viennese repertoire, having studied with members of the Alban Berg Quartet.  Their first violinist is of soloist caliber and their performances are vivid, memorable and viscerally involving for the audience. 

After winning the Gold Medal at the prestigious ARD Competition, the group rapidly established itself on the European musical scene. The quartet was an ECHO Rising Star in 2010, which brought them to the leading European venues. It was a BBC New Generation Artist in 2012, and in 2014 the musicians received the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

Recent engagements have taken the quartet to the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus and Philharmonie Berlin, Edinburgh International Festival, Wigmore Hall London, Carnegie Hall New York, Rheingau Musik Festival, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele and to the Chopin and his Europe Festival in Warsaw. The 2018/19 season included engagements at the Auditori Barcelona, Bozar Brussels, Frauenkirche Dresden, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Louvre Paris and at the Tonhalle Zurich. In summer 2019 the quartet begins its Schubert cycle for the Schubertiade in Austria. In June 2019 their Japan tour will bring them to locations such as Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama.

The Apollon Musagète Quartet collaborates with such artists as Martin Fröst, Gabriela Montero and Jörg Widmann. They have appeared in symphonic series with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

They welcome adventurous collaborations and have toured extensively with pop star Tori Amos, as well as working with the Berlin based performance group Nico and the Navigators, and also a ballet production of the National Theatre in Nuremberg.

ARTIST'S WEBSITE

 

“Kern's musicality radiates off the stage and saturates the hall, and it is joyously, intensely alive. Call it star quality.”

—Washington Post

With her vivid stage presence, musicianship and formidable technique, Russian-American pianist Olga Kern continues to captivate fans and critics alike.  Born to a family of musicians with direct links to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff,  she jumpstarted her U.S. career by winning the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Ms. Kern tours regularly throughout Russia, Europe, the United States, Japan, South Africa and South Korea. She has performed with such orchestras as Tokyo’s NHK Symphony, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre National De Lyon, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the Detroit Symphony and the Moscow, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati Symphonies.  She gives solo recitals in Chicago, Zurich, Milan and Seattle, and alongside Renée Fleming and Kathleen Battle.  She has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Lincoln Center, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Salzburger Festspielhaus, La Scala in Milan, Tonhalle in Zurich, and the Châtelet in Paris.

Ms. Kern has many recordings.  Her 2004 CD of Rachmaninoff works was nominated for a Grammy award, and her most recent release is the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata with cellist Sol Gabetta.  

In 2016, she was Jury Chairman of both the Cliburn Amateur Piano Competition and the first Olga Kern International Piano Competition, where she also holds the title of Artistic Director. Ms. Kern frequently gives masterclasses and since 2017 has taught at the Manhattan School of Music. She served as Artist in Residence for the San Antonio Symphony’s 2017-18 season, and has been designated the Virginia Arts Festival’s Director of Chamber Music.

In 2017, Ms. Kern was gratified to receive the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, joining other honorees including Rosa Parks, Buzz Aldrin, Coretta Scott King, and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. This commendation recognizes Americans who “embody the spirit of America in their salute to tolerance, brotherhood, diversity, and patriotism.”

Olga Kern is a Steinway Artist.

ARTIST'S WEBSITE

The French/Belgian Quatuor Danel has been at the forefront of the European music scene ever since its founding in 1991, with major concert performances worldwide and a number of groundbreaking recordings that have won important international awards.  Although well established in Europe, the Quartet made its American debut only during the 2015-16 season, including concerts in New York and Washington, D.C.

With a sound suffused with warmth and romanticism, the ensemble is famous for their bold, concentrated interpretations of the string quartet cycles of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Shostakovich, and Weinberg. Their performances of the traditional quartet repertoire have won them lavish praise from both public and the press.

Russian composers have a special place in the Quatuor Danel’s repertoire. They have championed all string quartets by Shostakovich and recorded the complete cycle for Fuga Libera in 2005. This box-set was re-issued by Alpha and still counts as one of the benchmark interpretations of Shostakovich’ quartets. The Danel were the first quartet to record the 17 quartets by Mieczysław Weinberg. They were also the first to perform the complete Weinberg cycle, in Manchester and Utrecht.

The Quatuor’s current diary includes the major concert halls in Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna, Hamburg, Milano, Taipei, Tokyo, New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They will perform the complete Shostakovich and Weinberg cycles at Wigmore Hall, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Utrecht and Philharmonie de Paris. They will stage complete Beethoven cycles in Jerusalem, Taipei, Lyon, Badenweiler, Manchester and finally in Utrecht.

In 2016, the Quatuor Danel launched a three-year residency in Utrecht, consisting of concerts, masterclasses, lectures and unusual collaborations with other artists. Beginning in 2019, the Quatuor will embark on a three-year residency in Wigmore Hall.

ARTIST'S WEBSITE

“Weilerstein is a consummate performer, combining technical precision with impassioned musicianship.”

The MacArthur Foundation, in awarding Alisa Weilerstein a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship (the “Genius Grant”)

American-born cellist Alisa Weilerstein is known worldwide for her natural virtuosity, the intensity of her playing and the spontaneity and sensitivity of her interpretations. In 2010, she was invited by Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic to play the Elgar concerto. She has appeared with all of the major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe with such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Yuri Temirkanov, Osmo Vänskä, Semyon Bychkov and Jaap van Zweden. She also appears at major music festivals throughout the world as a soloist, recitalist and as a chamber musician.

In the 2018-19 season, Weilerstein releases Transfigured Night on the Pentatone label, including Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, from which the album takes its title. She will tour Verklärte Nacht in two configurations: one with a string ensemble, and the other with pianist Inon Barnatan, violinist Sergey Khachatryan and percussionist Colin Currie. Also in 2018-19 she performs Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto with the Gothenburg Philharmonic, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Valencia Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony, and tours the U.S. playing Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic led by Semyon Bychkov. She performs the Schumann Concerto, Saint-Saëns’s First Cello Concerto, Britten’s Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, and Bloch’s Schelomo in cities from San Diego to Vienna. Finally, she gives two performances, with the composer leading both Copenhagen’s Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony, of Matthias Pintscher’s new cello concerto Un despertar (An Awakening), which was written for her.

Between orchestral engagements she will perform Bach’s complete cello suites in Boston (Celebrity Series), in Paris (the Saint-Denis Festival), the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and for Cal Performances in Berkeley.

MS WEILERSTEIN'S WEBSITE

“One of the most admired pianists of his generation” (New York Times), Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan is celebrated for his poetic sensibility, musical intelligence and consummate artistry. He was recently named Music Director of the La Jolla Music Society Summerfest, beginning in 2019, and just completed three seasons as the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic. After recent debuts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Chicago, Baltimore, and Seattle Symphonies, he performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and made debuts with both the London and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras.

In recital this season, Barnatan returns to venues including Wigmore Hall, the 92nd Street Y and Southbank Centre, besides making Carnegie Hall appearances with soprano Renée Fleming and regular duo partner Alisa Weilerstein. A sought-after chamber musician, he appears regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His commissions and performs works by many living composers, including Thomas Adès, Sebastian Currier, Avner Dorman, Alan Fletcher, Joseph Hallman, Alasdair Nicolson, Andrew Norman, and Matthias Pintscher.

“A born Schubertian” (Gramophone), Barnatan’s critically acclaimed discography includes Avie and Bridge recordings of the composer’s works, as well as Darknesse Visible, which earned a coveted place on the New York Times’ “Best of 2012” list. His most recent CD is a live recording of Messiaen’s 90-minute masterpiece Des canyons aux étoiles (“From the Canyons to the Stars”). His 2015 Decca Classics release, Rachmaninov & Chopin: Cello Sonatas with Alisa Weilerstein, earned rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.

MR. BARNATAN'S WEBSITE

“Her gifts are at a level so removed from the rest of us that all we can do is feel the appropriate awe and then wonder on the mysteries of nature.”

—The New York Times

Violinist Sarah Chang is an artist at the top of her game.

She performs with such major orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, led by such conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Mariss Jansons, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, André Previn, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

She has given recitals at the Kennedy Center, Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Symphony Hall (Boston), the Barbican Centre, the Philharmonie (Berlin) and the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam).

Chamber music partners include Pinchas Zukerman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yefim Bronfman, Martha Argerich, Leif Ove Andsnes, Stephen Kovacevich, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Lars Vogt and the late Isaac Stern.

Ms Chang has had some extraordinary recognition: Yale University has named a chair in Sprague Hall in her honor, in 2006 Newsweek named her as one of the Twenty Top Women in Leadership and, in 2008, she was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.  In June 2004 she carried the Olympic Torch in New York, and in the same month became the  youngest person ever to receive the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame award.  In 2011, Ms. Chang was named an official Artistic Ambassador by the United States Embassy.

MS CHANG'S WEBSITE

The excellent young Telegraph Quartet, awarded the prestigious 2016 Naumburg Award, tours regularly and has performed at Carnegie Hall as well as at such festivals as Chautauqua and the Emilia Romagna Festival.   They are currently Quartet in Residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

THE TELEGRAPH QUARTET'S WEBSITE