Season 2023/24 Forthcoming Concerts

Wednesday 24 April 2024, 7:30pm
Peterhouse Theatre, Trumpington St, Cambridge CB2 1RD

MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ, mezzo-soprano • MITSUKO UCHIDA, piano

Generously sponsored by Mr Dilip Chandra
Debussy
Chansons de Bilitis, L. 90
Debussy
Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire, L. 64
INTERVAL
Debussy
Ariettes oubliées, L. 60
Messiaen
Poèmes pour Mi (1937)

Born in the Czech city of Brno, Magdalena Kožená is one of the most sought-after singers performing today. As celebrated for her performances in the opera house as in the concert hall, she an exclusive artist with Deutsche Grammophon since 1999 and has since been awarded multiple prizes for her albums including The Gramophone’s Solo Vocal Award, The Gramophone’s Artist of the Year, the Echo Klassik Prize, Record Academy Prize Tokyo, and the Diapason d’or. In 2017, Magdalena forged a long-term relationship with Dutch label Pentatone and her three recordings with the company include Il Giardino dei sospiri with harpsichordist Václav Luks and Collegium 1704; an intimate chamber music album Soirée; and her most recent release, Nostalgia, with the celebrated pianist Yefim Bronfman.

During her illustrious career, Magdalena Kožená has worked with the world’s leading conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Roger Norrington. Her list of distinguished recital partners includes the pianists Daniel Barenboim, Malcolm Martineau, András Schiff and Mitsuko Uchida, with whom she has performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh and Salzburg Festivals. She is also in demand as soloist with the Berlin, Vienna and Czech Philharmonics, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Cleveland, Philadelphia and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras.

 

Legendary pianist Dame Mitsuko Uchida brings a deep insight into the music she plays through her own quest for truth and beauty. Renowned for her interpretations of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Beethoven, she has also illuminated the music of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern and Boulez for a new generation of listeners. She is an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and her April 2024 recital is her eighth for Camerata Musica Cambridge.

She has enjoyed close relationships over many years with the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and – in the US – the Chicago Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra, with whom she recently celebrated her 100th performance at Severance Hall.  Conductors with whom she has worked closely have included Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, and Mariss Jansons.

Mitsuko Uchida records exclusively for Decca, and her multi-award-winning discography includes the complete Mozart and Schubert piano sonatas.  She is the recipient of two Grammy Awards – for Mozart Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra, and for an album of Lieder with Dorothea Röschmann – and her recording of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra won The Gramophone Award for Best Concerto.

Friday 26 April 2024, 7:30pm
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge CB3 9DP

QUATUOR MODIGLIANI

Generously sponsored by Mr and Mrs Adam Horne

Amaury Coeytaux, violin

Loic Rio, violin

Laurent Marfaing, viola

François Kieffer, cello

Beethoven
Quartet in F, Op. 59, No. 1, ‘Rasumovsky’
INTERVAL
Schubert
Quartet in D minor, D. 810, ‘Death and the Maiden’

‘One of the best quartets in the world today’, wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung of the Quatuor Modigliani; ‘with balance, transparency, symphonic comprehension, and a confident style, …at the very highest level’. Founded in 2003, the Quatuor Modigliani is one of  the world’s most sought- after quartets, featuring regularly in prominent international series and on the world’s most prestigious concert halls.

In addition to annual tours in the United States and in Asia, the quartet’s numerous European tours have brought them to such distinguished venues as Wigmore Hall, the Paris Philharmonie and Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Saint-Petersburg Philharmonia and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

A year after their founding, the Quatuor Modigliani won three First Prizes successively at the Eindhoven International Competition (2004), the Vittorio Rimbotti in Florence (2005) and the prestigious Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York (2006). Following studies with the Ysaÿe Quartet and masterclasses with Walter Levin and György Kurtág, the Quatuor Modigliani was invited to work with the Artemis Quartet at the Berlin Universität der Künste [University for the Arts].

The quartet enjoys cultivating close friendships with their chamber-music partners, amongst them artists such as Sabine Meyer, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Jean-Frédéric Neuberger, Beatrice Rana, Fazil Say, Augustin Dumay, and Daniel Müller-Schott.

The Quatuor Modigliani's productive collaboration with the Mirare record label has led to fifteen recordings reflecting their vast repertoire (including Schubert, Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Bartók among many others), and winning them numerous awards in France and beyond. The quartet also performs and commissions a wide range of contemporary works from composers including Marc-Antony Turnage, Philippe Hersant, Peter Vasks, Kaija Saariaho and Evgeny Kissin. On the occasion of their most recent recording-release, the prestigious British magazine, The Strad, selected the quartet as their cover feature.

Through the support of generous sponsors, the Quatuor Modigliani has the privilege of playing four magnificent and historic Italian instruments: Amaury Coeytaux plays a 1773 violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Loïc Rio plays a 1780 violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Laurent Marfaing plays a 1660 viola by Luigi Mariani, and François Kieffer plays a 1706 cello by Matteo Goffriller.

Friday 24 May 2024, 7:30pm
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge CB3 9DP

RAFAŁ BLECHACZ, piano

Chopin
Nocturne in A-flat, Op. 32 No. 2
Chopin
Three Mazurkas, Op. 50
Chopin
Sonata in B-flat minor, Op. 35
INTERVAL
Chopin
Nocturne in F-sharp minor, Op. 48 No. 2
Chopin
Sonata in B minor, Op. 58

In the almost twenty years since his victory in the 2005 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Rafał Blechacz has achieved a position as one of the preeminent pianists of our age. His outstanding talent has been appreciated by the audiences of Europe, America, and Asia, and he has regularly performed in the most prestigious concert halls, and - in concertos - with the some of the world’s finest orchestras and conductors. His concert venues include the Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt-am-Main, Liederhalle in Stuttgart, Konzerthaus in Vienna, Tonhalle in Zurich, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Avery Fisher Hall in New York, La Scala in Milan, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, to name but a few. Conductors with hom he has played include Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Harding, Pavo Järvi, Fabio Luisi, Kent Nagano, Andris Nelsons, Trevor Pinnock, Mikhail Pletnev, Antoni Wit, and David Zinman. 

Ever since he won the Grand Prix, the Gold Medal, and the Audience Award at the Chopin Competition in 2005, he has consolidated his reputation as an interpreter of Chopin’s works who combines seemingly effortless virtuosity with outstanding interpretative intelligence and vision. His repertory, however, is ever-growing, and in a series of recordings for Deutsche Grammophon (for whom he records exclusively) he has offered equally highly regarded interpretations of  Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Debussy and Szymanowski. Among his numerous prizes and honours is the American Gilmore Artist Award, sometimes called the ‘Nobel Prize for the Piano’, which was bestowed on him in  2014.