Please credit all images and video to “St Leonards Concerts”
Monday 5th December
Piano trios by Mendelsson, Handel, & Shostakovich. Played by Baillie, van der Heijden & Stojanovic.
7.30pm. Christ Church, Silchester Road, TN37 6GL
About cellist Laura van der Heijden:
Laura van der Heijden has already made a name for herself as a very special emerging talent, captivating audiences and critics alike with the sensitivity of her sound and interpretations. This soulful and evocative artist can already look back on a number of exceptional achievements, among them being the winner – at the age of just 15 – of the BBC Young Musician Competition.
Her 2018 debut album “1948”, featuring Russian music for cello and piano with pianist Petr Limonov, won the 2018 Edison Klassiek Award (broadcast live on Dutch television), and the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Newcomer Award. The CD has been hailed as a “dazzling, imaginative and impressive” debut recording.
In 2019, Laura graduated from Cambridge University, and is currently in the middle of a busy 2019/20 season, which sees her perform with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Aldeburgh, the Tchaikovsky Symphony in Moscow, the Prague Symphony in the UK, the London Philharmonic and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras in the UK, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the US.
For further info please visit www.lauravanderheijden.uk
About pianist Ljubica Stojanovic:
Born in Serbia, Ljubica Stojanovic studied with Aleksandar Šandorov at the University of Arts in Belgrade, and with Caroline Palmer, Ronan O’Hora and David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. She currently studies with Christian Petersen in the Konzertexamen programme at the Universität der Künste Berl
Ljubica performed at the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall and St Martin-in-the-fields in London; Mozarteum University, Salzburg, the Romanian Athenaeum, Bucharest; the Philharmonic Hall, Ljubljana; and the Kolarac Hall in Belgrade. She collaborated with the Witold Lutosławski Philharmonic (Wrocław), the Serbian Radio Television Orchestra, Guildhall School of Music and Drama Symphony Orchestra, and with the oboist Nicholas Daniel, clarinetist Andrew Marriner and the violinist Henning Kraggerud.
About violinist Max Baillie:
British-German violinist and violist Max Baillie is sought after as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader in the UK and abroad. Max’s musical life reflects his interest in the cross-pollination of musical styles. Artists has worked with include Steve Reich, Mischa Maisky, Bjork, John Williams, Stevie Wonder, Thomas Adès, Bobby McFerrin, Zakir Hussain, James Thierrée, and many more. He is a member of Lodestar Trio which released their debut album Bach to Folk, to critical acclaim, this year. He has played with quintet ZRI for 12 years, making 3 discs and touring unique versions of Brahms, Schubert, Janacek and music from Vienna’s after hours tavern culture. From folk tunes in the Welsh hills to major festivals across the world, Max leads a dynamic life which embraces classical, improvisation, contemporary, and experimental music.
www.maxbaillie.com
Monday 12th December
A celebration of music from Vienna’s after-hours tavern, ZRI, the Red Hedgehog Tavern Band.
7pm. Crown House, 57 Marina, TN38 0BE
ABOUT ZRI:
Ben Harlan – clarinet
Max Baillie – violin
Matthew Sharp – cello
Iris Pissaride – santouri (hammer dulcimer)
Jon Banks – accordion
With musical bonds and friendships stretching back into early childhood, ZRI was formed 12 years ago by clarinettist Ben Harlan. The quintet takes its name from the Red Hedgehog Tavern in Vienna, Zum Roten Igel, where folk, including Schubert and Brahms, would go and hear the Gypsies play. Following launch concerts in 2011 ZRI has toured the UK extensively with its unique versions of both the Brahms and Schubert quintets, releasing its debut disc in 2014. Alongside other major festivals, ZRI have performed at Henley, York, Guildford International, Swaledale and Kings Place. In addition to their Brahms and Schubert programmes ZRI has its Cellar Sessions, a fiery selection of classical and Gypsy favourites as might have been heard at the eponymous Red Hedgehog Tavern. ZRI also tours its own live score to Charlie Chaplin’s early classic ‘The Adventurer’, and made its debut performance of Janacek’s Kreutzer Sonata on Swiss national radio last Summer. They look forward to fesivals in Norway and Sweden next year.
Some Historical Background:
For nearly a hundred years, the doors of the Red Hedgehog – Zum rothen Igel – opened onto the very heart of Viennese musical life. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde established the city’s first public concert hall there, hosting regular premieres by Beethoven, and then Schubert, who lived next door at one point. As if that wasn’t enough, the complex of buildings included a bar at the back with a vaulted cellar that later became Brahms’s favourite haunt, where patrons caroused and who knows what kind of musical activities went on after hours.
The original building was demolished in 1906, but the spirit of the great composers feeding off the soundscape of a dynamic and cosmopolitan urban culture lives on in ZRI. Schubert and Brahms were both fascinated by Hungarian ‘Gypsy-band’ music and it became as fashionable as the waltz in Vienna, with one of the tunes included here still part of the standard repertory in an arrangement by Brahms. Bach may never have been to the city but some of his music must surely have been performed at the Igel and his ghost presided over the whole tradition.
And this recording celebrates ghosts from the future too. American tunes were being played in Vienna even in Brahms’s time, and once the first recordings started to arrive the jazz influence on improvising Hungarian bands and artists like Georges Boulanger was immediate. The transatlantic flavour of ‘Hora din Budesti’ and ‘Tamboo’ owes much to this uniquely Viennese melting pot and, if the Igel still stood, the fusion of old-world instruments with contemporary songs by Donna Summer, Solange and Taylor Swift would not be out of place.