This week at the Concert Hall and at the new theatre there will be performances by the internationally acclaimed violinists Pinchas Zukerman and James Ehnes.
Both musicians were trained in the United States and studied in the same performing school that can trace its roots back to Russia. Zukerman’s teacher at the Juilliard School in New York was Ivan Alexandrovich Galamian, who emigrated to America from Moscow. Thirty years later, Ehnes also studied at the Juilliard School under Galamian’s pupils Francis Chaplin and Sally Thomas. Zukerman is also known not just as a first-class violinist but also as a violist and conductor. He collaborates with the English Chamber Orchestra, directs the orchestra of Canada’s National Arts Centre and is also Principal Guest Conductor of London’s Philharmonia orchestra. At these concerts at the Mariinsky it will be possible to see Zukerman both as a soloist (in the Beethoven Concerto and in Mozart’s Third Concerto) and as a conductor. He will be conducting the Mariinsky Orchestra in a performance of Brahms’ First Symphony.
James Ehnes, currently a judge of the violin at the Tchaikovsky Competition, has made a name for himself as a musician who experiments a great deal on early instruments. He owns a 1715 Stradivarius violin and has even written a foreword for a catalogue for an exhibition about violins the craftsman made. The disc Hommage, featuring Ehnes performing baroque and romantic music on nine different “named” violins and three violas, received Grammy and Gramophone awards. At the Mariinsky Theatre Ehnes will be performing Sonatas and Partitas by Bach – works that form some of the deepest and most demanding violin scores. In the sequence of the six cycles (three sonatas and three partitas) one can see an allusion to the Gospels (Birth – Passions – Resurrection). The inner meditation hidden in this music together with the highly complex polyphonic technique are a serious test for any violinist.
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