Vesko Eshkenazy

 

“Vesko Eschkenazy is a brilliant violinist”, heads De Telegraaf in November 2000, the largest daily in The Netherlands, after his interpretation of the First Violin Concerto by Szymanovski with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Eschkenazy has been its concertmaster since 1999.

EDUCATION

Born in Bulgaria in 1970 into a family of musicians, still a child, Vesko appeared as an orchestra leader. At 11 years old he became concertmaster of the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra of Prof. Vladi Simeonov. He is a graduate of the L. Pipkov National Music School in Sofia and of the P. Vladiguerov State Music Academy where he studied violin with Angelina Atanassova and Prof. Petar Hristoskov. In 1990, Vesko Eschkenazy left Bulgaria for London and completed a two year Masters Degree for solo performers with Prof. Ifra Neaman at the Guildhall School of Music.

AWARDS

Vesko Eschkenazy is a laureate of the International Violin Competition “Wieniawski” in (Poznan, Poland), the China International Violin Competition Beijing and the Carl Flesch Competition in London. He has recently been awarded Musician of the Year 2010 by the Bulgarian National Radio.

CONCERTS

Vesko Eschkenazy performs extensively in Europe, USA, South America, India, China and takes part in the festivals Midem in Cannes, Montpellier and Atlantic (France), the Music Festivals in Nantes and Rheims, the New Year Music Festival in Sofia and the Varna Summer and Apolonia Festival. He has performed as soloist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Mexico City Symphony, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and the Bach Chamber Orchestra Berlin, to name a few. He has taken part in concerts alongside Montserrat Caballé, Placido Domingo, Alexis Weissenberg, Yuri Bashmet, and Mstislav Rostropovich and has played under the direction of Mariss Jansons, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly, Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Carlo-Maria Giulini, Seiji Ozawa and Emil Tchakarov.

Some of his most outstanding performances were that of the Violin Concerto in A major by Mozart under Mariss Jansons, the Dvorak Violin Concerto under Sir Colin Davis, the Barber Violin Concerto under Jaap van Zweden and the Bruch Violin Concerto in G minor (January 2012) under Ankush Kumar Bahl (replacing Kurt Masur), all with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

In 2009 Eschkenazy performed extensively with his brother, the conductor Martin Panteleev, with whom he performed the Dvorak Violin Concerto with the Orkest van het Oosten, Mozart’s A major Concerto with the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra and many other works. The two brothers accomplished a tour to Sofia and Istanbul with the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra in the same year.

Vesko Eschkenazy started the 2010/2011 season with an open air performance in the very centre of Sofia with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra gathering the largest audience for classical concert ever. In the same season he was Artist in Residence in the Bulgaria Hall in Sofia with four recitals and a performance of the Bruch Violin Concerto in G minor with the Sofia Philharmonic.

RECORDINGS

Vesko Eschkenazy records for Pentatone Classics. His recording with the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra of concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Schubert (Rondo) received the highest appraisal of the critics. Luister Magazine (Holland) remarks: “Vesko Eschkenazy writes history with his new super recording for the Pentatone Classics of the violin concertos by Mozart and Mendelssohn”. Michael Liebovitz (USA Classics Today) adds: “He tackles Mozart with brilliance; Schubert with a stable phrasing [..]. His warm, well rounded tone competes with any other recording of a famous violinist [..]” A recording of Bach Concertos has been released in November 2012.

CHAMBER MUSIC

Vesko Eschkenazy is also a beloved chamber musician. In 1995 he joined the pianist Ludmil Angelov to perform sonata duos. They have given a large number of concerts in Europe. Exceptionally warmly accepted were those by the Spanish audiences in the cities of Gijon, Toledo and Madrid: in four successive evenings, Eschkenazy and Angelov performed the complete Mozart sonatas for violin and piano. Their joint Russian Music CD has been released by the Gega New Music House. Their second album “The fascinating George Gershwin” has been released by  Pentatone Classics. In October 2007 the musicians gave a recital in a sold-out Bulgaria Hall in Sofia, broadcast live by Bulgarian national television.

In 2012/2013 Vesko Eschkenazy will also form a duo with pianist Marietta Petkova.

VIOLIN

Vesko Eschkenazy is playing a Guarneri del Gesu violin from 1741, the property of an anonymous sponsor in The Netherlands.

Shiniti Ueno

 

Multi-percussionist Shiniti Uéno, founder and music director of Shiniti Uéno & Phonix Refléxion and Ensemble Musica Vivante, has won numerous prices, including at the Concours International pour Interpretation de la Musique Contemporaine pour Percussion. He worked as a timpanist with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, after which he was the principal percussionist and timpanist in the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and has since developed an international career. As a concerto soloist he has played the Percussion Concerto by André Jolivet and the Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra by Paul Creston, both with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. He gave the Japanese premieres of the Marimba Concerto (wind instruments) by Niel De Ponte and the Timpani Concerto by William Kraft. In particular, the Japanese premiere of the Timpani Concerto by William Kraft, which took place at a Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra concert in Tokyo (Suntory Hall) was a huge success. Since his debut as a soloist in 1977 he has given forty recitals both in Japan and around the world, and premiered over a hundred new compositions. He has released a total of thirteen CDs, of which three were selected as editor’s choice (tokusen-ban) by the Record Geijutsu magazine. ‘Vibra-Elufa’, released last year, was nominated for a 2019 Record Academy Award in the contemporary music category.

Juan Lago

 

Since the beginning of his career, Spanish-born pianist Juan Lago has attained numerous prizes in the foremost piano competitions in Spain. Most recently, he has been awarded at the XXIII Concorso Internazionale “Valsesia-Musica” in Varallo, Italy; the XX “Cidade de Ferrol” Piano Competition; the IX Premio Internazionale Pianistico “A. Scriabin” in Grosseto, Italy; and the VI “Compositores de España” International Competition of Las Rozas de Madrid. As a consequence of these successes, Juan Lago performed his first European tour and his first recording of an album for “Radio Clásica,” Spanish National Radio, featuring works by Beethoven, Scriabin, and Bartók.

Juan Lago has performed in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, England, Russia, Latvia, Turkey, United States, China, South Korea and all major cities in Spain as a recitalist, chamber musician and as concerto soloist playing under conductors such as Ovidiu Balan, Emin Guven Yasliçam, José Ramón Encinar, Ernest Martínez Izquierdo, Joachim Jousse, José Luis Martínez and Francisco de Gálvez among others, as well with orchestras such as the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana (Italy), “Mihail Jora” Philharmonic Orchestra of Bacau (Rumania), Çukurova State Symphony Orchestra (Turkey), Istambul Chamber Orchestra (Turkey), and the Spanish Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, Orquesta de Córdoba, Orquesta de Valencia and Orquesta Sinfónica de Málaga.

Lago has appeared as a master artist at the Washington International Piano Festival (Washington, D.C., U.S.A.); the Festival del Mediterráneo at the Palau de les Arts (Valencia, Spain), directed by Zubin Mehta; Talent Music Summer Courses (Brescia, Italy); Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne (Germany); Musical Krasnogorsk (Moscow, Russia); Schubertiaden Schnackenburg (Germany); Festival de Vila-seca (Spain); Alion Baltic International Music Festival or Semaine Internationale Piano et musique de chambre (Blonay, Switzerland).

As an avid chamber musician, Juan Lago has collaborated with violinists Vasco Vassilev, Alissa Margulis and Santiago Juan, violist Santiago Cantó, cellist Alexander Buzlov and Iván Balaguer and pianist Belén Navarro.

He has presented lectures at Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal), Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Germany), Hochschule für Musik Aachen (Germany), Gulangyu Conservatory of Xiamen (China), Latvian Academy of Music, Riga (Latvia) or Conservatorio José Iturbi of Valencia (Spain).

Juan Lago is the Founder and Artistic Director of Campillos International Piano Competition since 2007, Piano Department Director of Valencia International Performance Academy and Festival (VIPA) and Artistic Director of Malaga International Piano Festival (FIPMA). In addition, he is the Artistic Director of the “Amadeus” piano concert series and Bancaja Foundation piano series organised by “Eutherpe Foundation” in Valencia.

He is often invited to serve as a jury member in competitions like Cantù (Italy), S. Rachmaninoff (Moscow, Russia), F. Chopin (Hartford, CT. USA), Parnassós (Monterrey, Mexico) and many others.

Since 1999, Juan Lago has served as professor of piano at the “José Iturbi” Conservatory of Valencia, where he became piano department Chair in 2010. He has also been teaching piano performance at the Talent Music Master Courses in Brescia, Italy, since 2017. Currently Juan Lago is teaching piano at the Qatar Music Academy by the Qatar Foundation. His students have been awarded numerous times in international and Spanish competitions.

Lago holds a Master’s degree in Performance and Musical Research from the Valencian International University; an Artist Diploma from the Amsterdam Conservatorium, where he studied under the tutelage of Professor Jan Wijn; a Bachelor’s degree from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid, where he studied with Professor Ana Guijarro, and a degree from the Conservatorio Superior de Málaga (Professional Degree), where he studied with Professor Juan J. Peralta. He has also been influenced by pianists Gyorgy Sebok, Eugen Indjic, Stanislav Pochekin, Imre Rohmann, Claudio Martínez Mehner and Leonel Morales.

 

Rafael Aznar – El Adelantado de Segovia: It’s a mature pianist, musically speaking … At the end, the presentation of a champion of competition is not pure firework … There were musical concept in executions and not just empty artifice of technique …

Luis Hidalgo – El Norte de Castilla: In Gaspard de la Nuit, Maurice Ravel’s work of authentic pianistic substance, the interpretation of Juan Lago was a real boast, especially in the dynamic plasticity, achieving great clarity in the movement of the various sound levels making the instrument a true symphonic Orchestra. In the second part the great technical skills of Juan Lago played again its role in compositions of pure virtuosity as Mephisto Waltz and Hungarian Rhapsody 12 by Franz Liszt…

 

PETER MAKEDONSKI

 

was born in 1988 in Sofia into the family of musicians. His grandfather, Prof. Peter Karparov was the founder of the trumpet school in Bulgaria and the first Bulgarian professor in the field. From the age of ten, Peter studied trumpet performance and music theory at the “Lyubomir Pipkov” National School of Music and later graduated from the National Academy of Music “Professor Pancho Vladigerov” in the class of Prof. Anghel Makedonski. He completed his education in 2011, and in 2018 defended a dissertation and was awarded a Doctorate.

Peter Makedonski is laureate of a number of competitions and contests: Academic competition in the Department of Brass and Percussion Instruments of the National Academy of Music, the National Competition for Singers and Instrumentalists “Svetoslav Obretenov”, “Young Musical Talents”, “Ohrid Pearls” and others Fellowship holder of the Ministry of Culture.

Makedonski has performed regularly as soloist of the Symphony Orchestra of the National Academy of Music, the Sofia Philharmonic, the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble and the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recipient of the Todorov Scholarship for his achievement in performance.

While still a student, following a successfully won competition, Makedonski served for three seasons as solo trumpeter in the orchestra of the National Opera of Sofia. Since 2011, he has been serving in the capacity of solo-trumpeter of the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, since 2018 – solo-trumpeter of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra.  In 2015, teamed with pianist Nadejda Tzanova and as a duo they became winners of five International chamber music competitions. In recognition for this achievement, they were distinguished with the prestigious Musician of the Year 2017 Award of the Allegro Vivace program of the Bulgarian National Radio, in the Ensembles category.