 3rd Cape Town International Summer Music Festival Concert 16Monday 08 December
Chamber Concert: “New European Strings” Chamber Orchestra Conductor: Dmitry Sitkovetsky
Soloists: Konstantin Lifshitz (piano)
Sharon Bezaly (flute)
All J. S. Bach programme:
Suite for Orchestra No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067
The “New European Strings” Chamber Orchestra
In 2003, the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (GSO) welcomed DMITRY SITKOVETSKY, world-renowned violinist and conductor, as its new Music Director. Russian born Sitkovetsky is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian State Symphony in Moscow and is Conductor Laureate of the Ulster Orchestra. As violin soloist, chamber musician, and conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky's compelling artistry has firmly established him as one of the foremost talents of his generation whose music-making speaks eloquently to audiences throughout the world. KONSTANTIN LIFSHITZ made his American début at the Newport Festival in 1996, he began his career as a pianist at seventeen with a work to which others come only at a mature age: Bach´s Goldberg Variations. The recording received a Grammy Nomination Award and was praised as the most convincing Bach interpretation since Glenn Gould. Described by The Times as “God’s Gift to the flute”, SHARON BEZALY was chosen as ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ by the prestigious Klassik Echo in Germany in 2002 and ‘Young Artist of the Year’ at the Cannes Classical Awards in 2003. Classics Today have hailed her as “a flutist virtually without peer in the world today“ and International Record Review wrote; “Her recordings and concert appearances are typically more than simply triumphs: they are defining artistic events“. Having started to play the flute at the age of 11, Sharon Bezaly gave her début concert as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta when she was 14. The NEW EUROPEAN STRINGS (NES) is a chamber orchestra founded by Dmitry Sitkovetsky in May 1990 inspired by his experiences as a musician of the East and West. He wanted to combine the qualities associated with the Russian String School, such as the uniform mastery of technique and total intensity of playing, with the finest traditions of ensemble playing and a thorough knowledge of various musical styles – the strong suits of the Western world of music. Soloists who have given concerts with the NES include Martha Argerich, John Browning, Bella Davidovich, Evgeny Kissin, Constantine Lifschitz, Barbara Hendricks, Evelyn Glennie, Sergei Nakariakov, Julian Rachlin, Vadim Repin, Yuri Bashmet, Gérard Caussé, Lynn Harrell, Truls Mørk, Boris Pergamenschikov and Bobby McFerrin. The Orchestra’s extensive repertoire has been expanded by Sitkovetsky’s transcriptions of some of the great chamber music masterpieces of which there are now more than twenty five, from Bach to Wolf to Shostakovich and Schnittke. The NES Chamber Orchestra’s compact disc of Sitkovetsky’s transcription for strings of the Bach Goldberg Variations, on the Warner Classics Nonesuch label, was received with rapturous critical acclaim and became a bestseller. In the spring of 2005 the new Shostakovich/Stravinsky recording came out on the Hanssler Classics label. The NES has toured the USA in April’05 as part of the Tuscan Sun Festival Tour with Nina Kotova and Frances Mayes which took them to 18 cities across the country: from New York’s Carnegie Hall to San Francisco, and from Seattle to Houston, Philadelphia and Atlanta. Highlights of the 2006-07 season included an all-Shchedrin programme in Belgrade, in celebration of the composer's 75th anniversary, as well as a series of concerts at the Bodensee Musikfestival in Germany. In the current season the NES is planning an extensive tour of Spain. In addition to the Cape Town International Summer Festival, overseas engagements in 2008 include MS Europa Ocean Sun Festival and the International Istanbul Music Festival.
Thank you to MS Europa Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten for assisting with the accommodation of Konstantin Lifshitz, Sharon Bezaly and the New European Strings Chamber Orchestra
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