WildKat PR is delighted to announce their newest artist, Russian pianist Rustem Hayroudinoff.

Described by Lazar Berman as “a serious artist and master, whose emergence in today’s atmosphere of pseudo-artistic and shallow music-making is especially valuable and welcome”, Rustem Hayroudinoff has performed to great critical acclaim in Japan, USA, Canada, his native Russia and Europe. More recently, he has made a recital debut in New York, performed Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Marin Alsop, toured the UK with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra performing the Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto and collaborated with the Soloists of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a chamber music series in London and Munich.

Some of the orchestras he has performed with are the Osaka Century Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony and London Philharmonic. His performances have been broadcast on most major classical radio stations around the world, and he has appeared in the documentary “The Unknown Shostakovich” alongside Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Gergiev and Maxim Shostakovich.

Hayroudinoff has recorded for NAMI Records (Japan), Decca and Chandos. His recordings of Shostakovich’s Theatre Music and the Dvorak Piano Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic were selected amongst the Best CDs of the Year by BBC Music and Gramophone magazines. His CD of the Rachmaninoff Complete Preludes was selected by Classic FM Magazine as part of the ‘four discs essential Rachmaninoff collection’, alongside the recordings of Arthur Rubinstein and Andre Previn. His recording of the Complete Études-Tableaux by Rachmaninoff became the Instrumental Choice of the Month with the BBC Music Magazine and was nominated for the Best Instrumental CD of the Year Award. It was also selected as the finest version of these pieces on BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library.
Rustem Hayroudinoff studied with Lev Naumov at the Moscow Conservatory and with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music, where he is now a Professor of piano. For more information, please visit www.hayroudinoff.com.

On Saturday 13th April, Rustem is performing at St Johns Smith Square, with a programme to include both CPE and JS Bach, Liszt and Rachmaninoff. For more information click here

(Written on March 15, 2013 )

Tonight, pianist Kimiko Ishizaka will bring her acclaimed tour of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier to London at the 1901 Arts Club at 7:30pm.

The tour, which was received with critical praise in the USA, sees Ishizaka perform all of Volume 1 of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. The New York Times described her as a “gifted and obviously devoted Bachian”.

Kimiko Ishizaka sprang to the attention of the public last May with the Open Goldberg Project when her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations became available for anyone to download for free. On the first day the recording received over 200,000 listens and 50,000 downloads

For more information on the concert please visit the 1901 Arts Club website here.

(Written on January 30, 2013 )

Tonight, at 8pm CET, the first ever live stream of a Yellow Lounge performance will be broadcast to the Deutsche Grammophon website. Featuring Daniel Hope (violin) and Ludovico Einaudi (piano), the evening will take place at the Stockholm club O-Baren Sturehof.

The set list will feature pieces from Daniel Hope’s upcoming album Spheres, to be released on February 15th on Deutsche Grammophon; a curated anthology of music exploring the concept of “musica universalis”: the idea that planetary movement creates sound.

The first e-single from the album, I Giorni, by Ludovico Einaudi, was released in mid-December 2012 and will be performed tonight by Daniel Hope, a string ensemble and Ludovico Einaudi himself, alongside several other tracks from Spheres.

To view the live stream, from 8pm CET tonight, please click here.

For more information on Spheres please click here.

(Written on January 10, 2013 )

Today, the conductor, pianist and Music Director of the Staatsoper Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, will celebrate his 70th birthday. Accentus Music, in association with ZDF and Arte, will honour the esteemed musician with a two-part documentary and a live broadcast on Arte of his “birthday concert” with the Staatskapelle Berlin. In addition, Accentus Music is pleased to announce the DVD release of Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 4-9 performed by Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin.

This evening, the Staatskapelle Berlin and Daniel Barenboim will give a concert in aid of a music kindergarten in Berlin, which will also mark the conductor’s birthday. Under the direction of Daniel Barenboim’s long-time colleague, Zubin Mehta, a new piece by Elliott Carter: “Dialogues II” will be performed. The work for piano and orchestra is dedicated to Daniel Barenboim, who will perform the piano part, as well as Beethoven’s 3^rd Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s 1^st Piano Concerto. Accentus Music will record the concert in co-production with ZDF and Unitel at the Berlin Philharmonie, which will be broadcast live from 20:15CET on Arte.

The two-part documentary; “Crossing Borders: Daniel Barenboim” by Paul Smaczny accompanies the artist in a search of the social significance of music and his tireless efforts for intercultural dialogue. The first part shows Barenboim working with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and follows him at sensational premiere concerts in Cairo and Gaza City. Part two highlights Barenboim’s efforts to overcome the Wagner taboo in Israel. Arte will broadcast the co-production of Accentus Music and ZDF tonight at 22:00 CET, following the special birthday concert broadcast.

Completing Accentus Music’s monumental celebration will be the release of a major symphonic series: Anton Bruckner’s “Mature Symphonies”. In 2010 Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin performed Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 4 to 9 in just eight days. Accentus Music and Unitel Classica recorded the six highly acclaimed concerts at the Berlin Philharmonie. In January 2013, Accentus Music will start with the release of Bruckner’s Symphony No 4.

Paul Smaczny, producer, director and founder of Accentus Music, has collaborated for over 20 years with Daniel Barenboim. In numerous concert recordings and publications, Smaczny documents the musical work of the Buenos Aires-born conductor and pianist. For his film, “Knowledge is the Beginning – Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra”, Smaczny won the 2006 International Emmy® Award for Arts Programming.

Broadcast date: Thursday, 15th November 2012, Arte

20.15: Daniel Barenboim Birthday Concert – Live from the Berlin Philharmonic

(A production of Accentus Music in coproduction with ZDF and Unitel, in collaboration with Arte.)

22.00: Crossing Borders: Daniel Barenboim (1/2): Music and Politics

23.00: Crossing Borders: Daniel Barenboim (2/2): Musical Approaches

N.B. Above times are CET.

(A production of Accentus Music in coproduction with ZDF, in collaboration with Arte)

For more information please visit the Arte website here, or the Accentus Music website here.

(Written on November 15, 2012 )

After two successful performances in LA, Lionel Bringuier received warm reviews from the LA Times. For his first performance at the Hollywood Bowl, Lionel began by leading the LA Philharmonic Orchestra and pianist Yefim Bronfman through Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, for which he was praised for keeping ‘things moving along for Bronfman, getting the Philharmonic to whip up some convincing thunder of its own’. The rest of the concert consisted of Elgar: ‘full of rambunctious energy and mischief, dancing with life whenever emerging from a contemplative variation, centered by a straight-forward, flowing Nimrod variation that drew applause in mid-piece.’

His following concert just days later was praised by the LA Times as showing the Bowl to be a ‘welcoming Beethovenian host’. Lionel ‘fluidly steered the orchestra through a clear, measured reading of a score’ ending with sheer exhuberance in the final movement. Alongside his fellow ‘gifted young frenchman’ Renaud Capucon, Lionel lead the audience through a rousing show true to the great scores of Beethoven.

Read the full articles here: 31st July & 2nd August.

(Written on August 22, 2012 )

Arts Journal- Slipped Disc 

Why Madrid pulled the plug on Barenboim: the full story 

Barenboim’s Madrid concert is cancelled….

Pianist in blasphemy trial issues defiant dance video

The composer and pianist Fazil Say has written “Dance” a new piece based on Turkish rhythms in reply to the charge he is being faced with.

Two Maestros turned 85 this week 

Kurt Masur and Michael Gielen turn 85 in the same week.

Mendelssohn gets his bust back in Dusseldorf 

The statue of Mendelssohn is reinstated on his plinth on 25^th September 2012 having been knocked down by the Nazis in 1936.

Gramophone 

RPS Society awards grants totalling £36, 500 

The Royal Philharmonic Society has awarded grants to 20 young composers and musicians.

The Guardian 

Guardagni: the first modern singer?  

Iestyn Davies explores if the castrato Gaeteno Gaurdagni was the first truly modern singer.

LA Times 

L.A Opera sets concert ‘Foscari’ with Placido Domingo, in O.C

Placido Domingo with star in a concert version in Verdi’s “The Two Foscari” as part of Los Angeles Opera’s new season.

Classic FM 

A real life Carnival of the Animals  

Sorrelli Strings perform at The Big Sheep Farm in Bideford, North Devon

(Written on July 20, 2012 )

The Guardian

How Dorset’s 1000-year-old Viking bones inspired my new oratorio

As the BSO’s composer, I was tasked with writing a piece for the London 2012 festival. And it was the skeletons in Dorset’s cupboard that inspired the Chalk Legend.

BBC Music Magazine

Computer creates piece of orchestral music in just 8 minutes

London Symphony Orchestra to perform computer-generated piece.

Schoenberg manuscript to be auctioned

Autograph manuscript of String Quartet No. 10 goes under the hammer.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

Top South African pianist ‘blacklisted’ by the Johannesburg Philharmonic

Professor Nina Schumann is one of the most active pianist in South Africa. She told the press today that she and her husband have been put on a blackist by the national orchestra’s aggressive management.

Gramophone

A double-edged sword

Performing the dual role of opera singer and director – from Carmen to this year’s Le nozze di Figaro at Stowe Opera.

Wells Cathedral invites boys and girls to ‘Be a Chorister for a Day’

Programme celebrates 10th anniversary this October.

(Written on July 12, 2012 )

The Guardian

The Shard will open to the wrong music

The London Philharmonic is to mark the inauguration of the corporate monolith with Fanfare for the Common Man. Surely Elgar’s visions of the end of the empire would be a better choice?

LA Times

George Fenton’s influences

The British composer, who’ll be conducting his own score for ‘Frozen Planet’ at the Bowl this week, numbers Henri Mancini, Mark Rothko and the Beatles among his influences.

‘Prometheus’ seeks out classical music in deep space

In space, no one can hear you scream — but everyone can hear the classical music loud and clear.

Jessica Duchen

Musicians against playing for free at the Olympics

A Facebook group, Musicians Against Playing for Free at the Olympics, has been started by Ashley Slater (formerly of Loose Tubes).

Music + Art = Magic?

About the correlation of music and art in the Impressionist era, and why it was that it took about 20 years for composers to cotton on.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

The lady who thought Bach was alive

The Times today carries a fond obituary of Lina Lalandi, founder of the (defunct) English Bach Festival who died on June 8, aged 91.

London street-mugged pianist makes her live comeback next week

Alexandra Dariescu was fortunate to escape without serious injury when she was violently mugged for her phone in broad daylight on a London street. She has not let it get her down.

If you’re booked by the Johannesburg Philharmonic, watch out: they don’t play

We’ve been sent a translated article from the Afrikaans press and another from an English-language paper reporting continuing chaos and mismanagement at South Africa’s premier orchestra.

The Times

Piece created in prison makes the big city stage

This is the world premiere of Beyond This, a 12-minute piece composed by a group of prisoners under the guidance of the composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and Sara Lee, the artistic director of Music in Prisons.

Gramophone

NY Philharmonic teams with medici.tv stream landmark concert

Performance available to stream online for 90 days from July 6.

Obituary: Brigitte Engerer, pianist

The French pianist Brigitte Engerer was never a household name – and virtually unknown in Britain where she rarely performed – but was a popular and highly respected figure in the profession.

Sir Mark Elder awarded Leeds University honorary degree

Presentation ceremony will be held during Leeds International Piano Competition.

(Written on July 6, 2012 )

The Telegraph

BBC to broadcast Last Night of the Proms in 3D

A ‘summer of 3D’ will include the The Last Night of the Proms, Planet Dinosaurs and Wimbledon, the BBC has revealed.

The Guardian

Melvyn Tan turns guinea pig: are musicians like athletes?

Do concert pianists need Olympian level of fitness to cope with the strains of performance? Science is using Melvyn Tan to find out.

LA Times

Who stole the teeth of Brahms and Strauss?

In a story that sounds ripped from an underwhelming, dental-centric thriller, Austrian officials are pursuing leads in an investigation of who broke into the graves of 19th century composers Johan Strauss Jr. and Johannes Brahms and stole their teeth.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

Hot young conductor gets label deal

Acclaimed young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado is now recording for harmonia mundi.

Gramophone

Parry’s Jerusalem recorded as originally conceived

First verse written for solo voice rather than full chorus.

Lang Lang gears up for the Latitude Festival

The pianist talks to Gramophone about his debut at the multi-arts event.

(Written on July 4, 2012 )

The Telegraph

Interview with composer Heiner Goebbels

Heiner Goebbels has transformed Henry Thoreau’s ideas into music for the UK premier of Walden as part of the London 2012 festival.

The Guardian

Glyndebourne and Figaro: a perfect marriage

The son of the festival’s founder and Glyndebourne’s first Susanna looks forward to a new production of Mozart’s great comic opera.

Neville Roberts obituary

Originally a tenor player, Neville answered an ad for bass trombonists and Sir John – always JB to his musicians – heard his audition and engaged him on a three-month trial.

BBC Music Magazine

BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition winners announced

The three winners of this year’s BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition have been announced.

The Independent

Bernard Haitink: A meastro passes on his baton to the next generation

It’s tough to make it as a conductor – so when 20 young stars where asked to perform for the great Bernard Haitlink, the pressure was on.

LA Times

A 4-D ‘concert’ at a London museum 

At Science Museum, an interactive digital installation co-developed by Esa-Pekka Salonen lets visitors conduct and step inside a virtual orchestra.

Hollywood Bowl opens with the queens of country and funk

Reba McEntire and Chaka Khan, both divas by virtue and of their talent, were inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame at this season’s opening night concert Friday.

Gramophone

Gearing up for the Aldeburgh World Orchestra

Aldeburgh Music launches remote learning learning technology.

Dudamel and Sounds Venezuela at the Southbank

Four days of events began Saturday.

Jessica Duchen

Brigitte Engerer, 1952-2012

Tributes have been pouring in following the death of the French pianist Brigitte Engerer at the age of 59.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

US orchestra chief quits after just three month

Lee Williamson started work as executive director of the Delaware Symphony in March. Now she has asked to be released from her contract with immediate effect.

The Times

Six of the best opera villains

If an opera is not a comedy or filled with people who wish to destroy their own lives (mostly as a result of failed love), then a villain is needed for the opera to end in the appropriately awful way.

My space: Gus Christie

The Glyndebourne boss talks about living on the grounds where the festival – founded by his grandfather – takes place.

(Written on June 25, 2012 )