PHILIPPE JAROUSSKY

The impossible voice

January 2021

Born in 1978, Philippe Jaroussky has established himself as the most admired countertenor of his generation, as confirmed by the French ‘Victoires de la Musique’ awards and multiple Echo Klassik Awards in Germany.  

Jaroussky was born in Maisons Lafitte (northwest of Paris), in January 1978. He first studied violin and piano at the conservatory in Versailles. In 1996 he began vocal studies with soprano Nicole Fallien and three years later debuted at the music festivals in Royaumont and Ambronay, where he sang in the Alessandro Scarlatti oratorio Sedecia, rè di Gerusalemme.

The following year, Jaroussky appeared in the Monteverdi operatic trilogy Orfeo, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, and Incoronazione di Poppea under conductor Jean-Claude Malgoire.  Jaroussky’s meteoric rise continued with his critically praised portrayal of Nero in Handel’s Agrippina at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris in 2003. This production was also captured on record by Dynamic Italy, the release coming the following year, and again drawing generally positive notices. 

Jaroussky has explored a vast Baroque repertoire. He has worked with renowned period-instrument orchestras such as L’Arpeggiata, Les Arts florissants, Ensemble Matheus, Les Musiciens du Louvre, with the leading conductors including Jean-Claude Malgoire, Rene Jacobs, and Jean Tubéry. He has appeared and recorded extensively with his own instrumental ensemble, Artaserse.

He has been praised for performances in all the most prestigious concert halls in France (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Salle Pleyel, Salle Gaveau, Opéra de Montpellier) and abroad (The Barbican Centre in London, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Grand Théâtre du Luxembourg, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Staatsoper and Philharmonie in Berlin, Teatro Real in Madrid, Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center in New York). 

In 2013 Jaroussky released his album Farinelli: Porpora Arias. The arias the French opera singer performs on this release were written in the 18th century for a castrato — a boy singer castrated to retain his high singing voice through adulthood. Jaroussky is still intact, as they say. He’s a countertenor who achieves that high pitch through vocal technique — singing in a ‘head voice,’ the way the way a female soprano would, rather than in his speaking register. It’s the reason, he says, that he’ll never sound exactly like a real castrato. “They were sounding more brilliant than us because they are bigger. They have enormous chests, with very small vocal cords,” Jaroussky explains in an interview with NPR’s Arun Rath. “What I liked with this Porpora music, particularly, is it wasn’t based about virtuosity. I think he’s respecting Farinelli more like a musician, and not only a vocal monster.” 

Currently presenting a series of recitals with his own ensemble Artaserse, Philippe Jaroussky is currently touring across 6 countries and has 34 upcoming concerts. Their next tour date is at Palais des Beaux-Arts (Bozar) in Brussels, after that they’ll be at Tonhalle Düsseldorf in Düsseldorf.

PIETRO DE MARIA

A bright star in the pianistic world

November 2020

Born in 1967 in Venice, the Italian pianist, demonstrated a bright gift winning the First Prize at the Alfred Cortot International Piano Competition in Milan at the age of 13. When asked for his earliest memories he recalls “I remember one evening at the house of my parents’ friends, I must have been 4 years old. There was an upright piano and I rushed to strum it, of course I didn’t know how to do it, having never received a musical education. After a few minutes they came to lock the instrument making me cry bitter tears … Perhaps on that occasion my parents were convinced that my desire to have a piano at home was not a whim.”   

He studied with Giorgio Vianello and Gino Gorini in his native Venice. After his graduation in Venice’s Conservatory, he continued his studies with Maria Tipo at the Conservatory of Geneva, where he obtained the Premier Prix with the highest honors in 1988.  

After winning the Critics’ Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1990, Pietro De Maria received the First Prize at the Dino Ciani International Competition – Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1990) and at the Géza Anda in Zurich (1994). In 1997 he was awarded the Mendelssohn Prize in Hamburg. 

Critics describe Pietro de Maria as “an artist of great sensitivity and delightful interpretive refinement.” “I always say that you have to caress the piano. Fluency is important and not hitting him” explains the 54-year-old interpreter. 

De Maria frequently performs in concerts, as a soloist with prestigious international orchestras and with eminent conductors, such as Roberto Abbado, Gary Bertini, Myung-Whun Chung, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Daniele Gatti and Gianandrea Noseda.  

Pietro De Maria is the first Italian pianist to have played Frédéric Chopin’s complete piano works in public concerts. These works have been recorded by Decca and have received important acknowledgments from international publications of prestige such as Diapason, International Piano and Pianist. 

“I’ve always loved it, since I was eight I wanted to play Chopin’s works. He has accompanied me in my development, so some years ago it was a natural consequence to play all of his works in concert and also record them.” Said de Maria during an interview. 

Surprisingly, when asked to choose three music pieces to be preserved for the eternity in case of nuclear cataclysm, his choice was: Bach’s Well-Tempered Harpsichord, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. 

Pietro De Maria is an Academician of Santa Cecilia and teaches at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He is in the teaching team of the La Scuola di Maria Tipo project organized by the Pinerolo Academy of Music. Being a renowned teacher, he defends the importance of music. “Music makes you smarter because it sets in motion areas of the brain that we don’t normally use (by that I don’t mean that musicians are necessarily superior people) and teaches us to listen, therefore, to be more open and tolerant. It is a great antidote to aging, keeps us young and teaches us to relate to our emotions and to have a psychomotor control of our body.”

PABLO HERAS-CASADO

A conductor of “glowing reputation”

September 2020

Pablo Heras-Casado is principal conductor of New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s and principal guest conductor of Madrid’s Teatro Real. Additionaly he regularly directs the leading orchestras and ensembles of Europe and North America. The Spanish artist, described by The Telegraph as a conductor of “glowing reputation,” Pablo Heras-Casado enjoys an unusually varied and broad-ranging career and has achieved remarkable success in repertoire ranging from renaissance polyphony and 19th-century grand opera to works by Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös and George Benjamin.  

Pablo Heras-Casado was born in Granada on 21 November 1977, the son of a policeman and a housewife. His remarkable artistic journey began seven years later when, encouraged by his parents, he joined his elementary school choir; soon after he began piano lessons and progressed to study music at the Granada Conservatory.  

In great demand as guest conductor, he regularly appears in Europe with the Philharmonia and London Symphony orchestras, Orchestre de Paris, Münchner Philharmoniker, amongst numerous others. He has also conducted the Berliner and Wiener Philharmoniker, The Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra. Heras-Casado was Principal Conductor of Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York between 2011 and 2017, having performed at Carnegie Hall and recorded together with it. 

In the operatic field, he currently leads Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle at Teatro Real in Madrid, where he is Principal Guest Conductor, over four consecutive seasons.  

Musical America’s 2014 Conductor of the Year, Pablo Heras-Casado holds the Medalla de Honor of the Rodriguez Acosta Foundation, Medalla de Andalucia 2019 and Ambassador Award of this region. He is Honorary Ambassador and recipient of the Golden Medal of Merit by the Council of Granada, as well as Honorary Citizen of the Province of Granada, his hometown. In 2018 he was awarded the title Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic. 

Highly committed to the Spanish charity Ayuda en Acción as a Global Ambassador, Heras-Casado supports and promotes the charity’s work internationally, and conducts an annual charity concert at Teatro Real in Madrid. 

In celebration of Beethoven’s anniversary in 2020, Heras-Casado releases of six recordings, including Symphony No.9, the complete Piano Concerti and Choral Fantasy. 

You’ll find all the details about the conductor and his outstanding artistic career, in his official webpage: http://pabloherascasado.com/

MISCHA MAISKY

From dicidence to reference

June 2020

Born in 1948 in Riga, Latvia, Mischa Maisky received his first music lessons there at the Children’s Music School and Conservatory. His older brother Valery was an organist and harpsichordist. Maisky took up the cello at eight and entered the Riga Conservatory. In 1965, he moved to the larger city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and he quickly flourished. He won a national cello competition, performed with the Leningrad Philharmonic – where he earned the nickname “Rostropovich of the Future- and took a prize at Moscow’s International Tchaikovsky Competition.  

He studied with Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory while pursuing a concert career throughout the former Soviet Union. After being imprisoned in a labour camp near Gorky for 18 months in 1970,  he emigrated to Israel in 1971, where he holds citizenship. And that was just his “first life,” as he says. 

In his performing and recording career, Mischa Maisky has worked in long-standing partnerships with artists such as the pianists Valery Afanassiev, Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Hélène Grimaud;  the violinists Janine Jansen, Gidon Kremer, Julian Rachlin,  and the conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein,  Zubin Mehta,  and many others. Maisky’s friendship with Martha Argerich has led to many performances together, such as the world premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s double concerto Romantic Offering in 2011 in Lucerne, Switzerland. 

As a Deutsche Grammophon artist during the last 25 years, he has made over 50 recordings, including many with such symphony orchestras. Maisky has recorded the major cello repertory for Deutsche Grammophon, issuing new music almost annually, and he has teamed with his daughter, pianist Lily Maisky, for several albums. 

Even if he had gone through difficult moments in the past, he doesn’t regregret it: “Though I didn’t get my diploma at the Moscow Conservatory, I did receive a much more complete life education because of my experience. Believe it or not, I actually don’t have any feelings of anger or resentment about my past. I don’t regret anything that has happened to me because I believe that it’s very important to try to find the positive elements in life experiences, even painful ones.” 

Today, Maisky resides in Belgium and considers himself a citizen of the world. “I do live in Europe and feel very European,”. “I play an Italian cello with French bows and German strings. I drive a Japanese car and wear a Swiss watch and Indian necklace. My first wife was American, my second beautiful wife is Italian. And by chance, all four of my children were born in four different countries. I always say I feel at home wherever people enjoy great classical music.” Said the artist during an interview in WQXR. 

DAVID OISTRAKH

The violin icon

May 2020

If there is a 20th century violinist who is at the height of Jascha Heifetz and the other great players in the history of the instrument, this was the Russian David Oistrakh. 

Oistrakh was born in 1908 in the city of Odessa, what is currently Ukraine. Being born in a Jewish family, he was one of the few musicians who did not emigrate with the disappearance of the Russian Empire and the later establishment of the Soviet Union in 1917. Therefore he is considered one of the greatest heroes of the former communist country culture. 

His father who was an amateur violinist passed his passion to his son from a very early age. He nurtured his love for the instrument as well as traditional klezmer music, which would influence in his style for the following decades.  

Oistrakh studied with the famous music educator Pyotr Stolyarsky, who also was in charge of the education of other great violinists of his generation, such as Nathan Milstein or Elizaveta Gilels, with whom Oistrakh would create tight friendship bonds. At the same time, Stolyarsky was the one who encouraged him in the practice of his long legato, a technique that Oistrakh came to master like few in history and for which he is still recognized today. 

Aram Khachaturian and Sergei Prokofiev are only two examples of the great conductors and composers of the Soviet period with who he performed during his long career. He traveled extensively throughout the communist bloc and even to many western European countries, including France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. He received multiple awards, including the possibly highest award from the Soviet Union, the celebrated Lenin Prize. 

For him cancelling a concert had never been an option.  After all, people have bought tickets, came to the meeting and the meeting at any cost is to be held! 

As many of his fellow countrymen, he was a fan of jokes, enthusiastically played chess and tennis and he loved fiction, art and history books. He was a caring man and always had found time to write a letter to his friends. 

David Oistrakh died of cardiac arrest in 1974 in Amsterdam. He today he is considered one of the most important violinists in history. 

ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN

The pianist, the legend

March 2020

The pianist Arthur Rubinstein, born on January 28th, 1897 in Lodz (Poland) and dead in 1982 in Geneva as a result of a sudden infection, is considered one of the greatest names in musical mythology of our century. He was always a firm cosmopolitan and his extraordinary optimism was capable of extracting the maximum dose of happiness from every minute of his existence. 

He began his piano studies at the age of 3 and when he was 5 he had his first public concert. At the age of 10 he was spotted by the well-known violinist Joseph Joachim, who was notably admired by the abilities of the young pianist. Therefore, he decided to take responsibility for the musical and pianistic education of the young Arthur. 

At the approximate age of 15 he studied with the teacher Ignaz Pederewski and a year later he went to study in Paris with Paul Dukas and Maurice Ravel. Between 1919 and 1920, the young pianist was already a frequent guest on the entire world-class concert circuit. Around 1930 he became a known and recognized figure worldwide. The good reviews of his concerts reached the most remote places in the world. His biographers comment that during those times he spent between 12 and 16 hours a day studying and improving his piano playing technique. 

Not only his performances were breathtaking but Rubinstein also surprised us with his versions of traditional pieces, which at the time were accused to be out of date. An interpreter who was able not only to maintain himself, but to renew himself in technique and style.  Works by Beethoven, Chopin,  Schubert, or  Brahms were renewed under his genius hands, brilliantly adapting them to the more modern interpretive criteria. 

One of the reasons why his pianism is still very present and relevant is the personal touch that he provided to the beautiful the sound that he achieved. Only with the first notes you can easily identify the artist. The beginning of Poulenc’s movements or the initial measures of the Appasionata are sufficient to recognize his treatment of color, melody and the use of the pedal. Rubinstein’s charismatic sound was from his youth, clear, crystalline and consistent. 

The first impression of the relatively young Rubinstein was of improvisational genius. But his progressive fidelity to what was written in contrast to the general overcoming of technique, sometimes supposed a problem for him. So when he had already reached his musical maturity, Rubinstein decided to dismiss certain works that had been in his repertoire. “I don’t dare to play Iberia now,” he once said, “because young pianists study a lot and play everything that is on paper.” He then devoted himself to the romantic repertoire. He delved with lyrical and brilliant gravity into Brahms’s pianism and he masterfully reinterpreted his already virtuous Chopin works. 

Rubinstein was a maestro in every sense of the word and the heritage of his pianism will last forever.