Herbstgold 2024
8. - 15. September 2024

Sie treffen zu diesem Projekt mehr Informationen hierunter auf Englisch:

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe returns to its Austrian home in Eisenstadt to perform two concerts at this year’s Herbstgold Festival. Resident orchestra at the Schloss Esterhazy since 2022, the COE regularly appears in the Palace’s programme of events every year and we are thrilled that the Esterhazy Foundation has extended our residency until 2027. This year’s Festival is about ‚yearning‘. Julia Rachlin, Artistic Director of Herbstgold, said: „To understand human beings, one must know what they yearn for. It would be too trivial, however, to associate the idea of yearning only with romantic feelings. It is worth taking pause again and again to become aware of one’s own longings. Especially in difficult and uncertain times, the yearning for a better world unites us. Music is the direct manifestation of the yearning felt by humans. So, what could be more natural than to immerse oneself in the world of music, which only comes into being through the emotions and the yearning vibrations of the soul? I’d like you to share in this ‚deep dive‘ exploration of all kinds of yearning.“ You can hear Julian Rachlin talking about the COE with Simon Mundy on our podcast, Interlude, here.

On 11th September, the Orchestra, led by its Associate Leader Marieke Blankestijn, will open the Festival with pianists Martha Argerich and Iddo Bar-Shai and narrator Annie Dutoit-Argerich in Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 82 and 100 and Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals. This concert will be broadcast live on medici.tv and also on the Austrian radio station ORF 1 on 22nd October. On 14th September, the COE will be joined by conductor Julian Rachlin and pianist Yefim Bronfman in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. This concert will be broadcast live on medici.tv and also on the Austrian TV channel ORF III at a later date.

MARTHA ARGERICH

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe first worked with Martha Argerich in 1987 when she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the 6-year old COE and Claudio Abbado in Vienna’s Konzerthaus. After more projects together in 1989, 1990 and 1991, we released a recording of the Schumann Piano Concerto conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt for Teldec in 1994. We then embarked on a 6-concert tour to Japan with Martha and conductor Emmanuel Krivine in November/December 1997 when she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Another tour to Japan happened in October 2000, also with Emmanuel Krivine, in a programme which included Schumann’s Piano Concerto, one of the most iconic pieces of her repertoire.  It was then in 2014 that we joined forces again at the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival where she played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and also treated the astonished audience to a piece for four hands with one of her oldest friends, Daniel Barenboim, who happened to be sitting in the Grand Théâtre that night. Although we had planned to tour with Martha, and also Vladimir Jurowski, in 2020, for reasons we all know this project was cancelled. It is therefore with great anticipation that we look forward to meet again this autumn, this time with one of her protégés, pianist Iddo Bar-Shai and her daughter Annie as narrator in Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals.

For a full biography of Martha Argerich, please click here.

IDDO BAR-SHAI

In advance of our concert together this September at the Herbstgold Festival in Eisenstadt, we had a conversation with pianist Iddo Bar-Shai, a great friend of Martha Argerich and who will be performing with the COE for the first time. To read the interview and find out about Iddo’s strong connections to Haydn, Austria, animals and nature, please click here.

Biography

Israeli pianist Iddo Bar-Shai studied with Pnina Salzman and Alexis Weissenberg.
He has performed on important stages such as the Wigmore Hall, Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris Philharmonie, Tokyo Opera City Hall, Berlin Philharmonie and the Beijing Zhongshan Concert Hall.

Iddo has played under the batons of Christoph Eschenbach, Lawrence Foster, Elihau Inbal, Oksana Lyniv, Aldo Ceccato, Ion Marin and Jesus Lopez-Cobos among others with prominent orchestras such as the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Konzerthaus orchestra, Les Siecles and The Orchestre National de Lille.

He has performed with renowned artists such as Martha Argerich, Maria João Pires, Menahem Pressler, Renaud Capucon, Steven Isserlis, Isabelle Faust, Augustin Dumay, Vilde Frang, Alisa Weilerstein, Matthias Goerne, Anna Prohaska, Veronika Eberle, Sayaka Shoji, Stefan Dohr and quartets such as the Ysaÿe, Ebène, Aviv, Modigliani and the American String Quartet. His interest in other forms of art brought him to collaborate, during his artist in residency at “Les Dominicains de Haute Alsace”, with shadows artist Philippe Beau for a project “Les Ombres Errantes” with Francois Couperin’s keyboard works which was highly acclaimed by the French press.

He participated in festivals such as Verbier, Ravinia, La Roque d’Anthéron, Menton, “Progetto Martha Argerich” in Lugano, “La Folle Journée” festivals in Nantes, Lisbon, Tokyo, Warsaw, Bilbao and Rio de Janeiro, “La Grange de Meslay”, the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival in Berlin and Jerusalem, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele and the Radio-France music festival in Montpellier, and his concerts were broadcast by Mezzo, Arte, Medici TV and NHK TV channels amongst others.

He is the founder and artistic director of the festival “Les Coups de Coeur a Chantilly” inaugurated in spring 2021 with renowned artists such as Martha Argerich (with concerts celebrating her 80th birthday), Maxim Vengerov, Mischa Maisky, Evgeny Kissin, Gidon Kremer, Steven Isserlis and Leonardo Garcia Alarcon to name a few.

His recordings for “Mirare” label which include music by Haydn, Chopin and Francois Couperin, received numerous awards and praise by the international press; among which it was described as “one of the best ever, dedicated to the piano works of Haydn” by “Le Monde de La Musique” and as a „magnificent achievement which confirms a new great talent of present keyboard“ by “Classique-News”.

YEFIM BRONFMAN

Internationally recognized as one of today’s most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of artists regularly sought by festivals, orchestras, conductors and recital series. His commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike.

Following summer festival appearances in Verbier, Israel, Aspen, Grand Tetons and Sun Valley the season begins with a European tour celebrating the auspicious 500th anniversary of the Munich Opera and Orchestra with concerts in Lucerne, Bucharest, London, Paris, Linz, Vienna and Munich. In partnership with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra together they will visit Japan and Korea followed in the US by return engagements throughout the season with New York Philharmonic, Boston, Kansas City, National, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Francisco symphonies and Minnesota Orchestra. With Munich Philharmonic and both Brahms concerti on the program he will travel to Spain and Carnegie Hall followed by European engagements with Budapest Festival Orchestra. An extensive winter/spring recital tour will begin in Ljubljana and include Milan, Berlin, Cleveland, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, La Jolla and culminate in Carnegie Hall in early May.

Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard School, Marlboro School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music, under Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists, in 2010 he was further honored as the recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University and in 2015 with an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.

MARIEKE BLANKESTIJN

Marieke Blankestijn was born in The Hague (Netherlands), studied in Salzburg (Austria) with Sandor Vegh and, at the age of 21, won the International Mozart Competition. She is a founder member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe of which she was appointed Leader in 1985. She also directs and appears as soloist with the COE, with whom she has recorded all the Brandenburg Concertos and her own recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, both to great critical acclaim. In 2012 she was appointed Leader of The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra whose principal conductor is the young israeli conductor Lahav Shani, who took over from Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2018. Marieke is a committed chamber musician and has lead the Gaudier Ensemble for 20 years, with whom she has recorded twelve CDs for Hyperion Records, in addition to recording Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante with Stephen Isserlis and the Vivaldi and Bach Oboe and Violin concertos with Douglas Boyd. She currently shares her life between rural Dorset and Rotterdam.