DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Violin Concerto No. 1 (1947-48)
It was a dangerous time for music in 1948 when Shostakovich was completing his First Violin Concerto—during Stalin’s regime, a month after the notorious Zhdanov Decrees had censured the composer for “bourgeois, formalist deviations.” When he and other composers were summoned before Zhdanov’s conference, his works were deemed to appeal to “foreign bandits and imperialists.” Appearing repentant and remorseful, Shostakovich said: “I have always striven to have the people accept my music. I have always heeded criticism directed against me, and tried in every way to work better and harder.” Still, it would be seven years before the dedicatee, David Oistrakh, courageously premiered the Violin Concerto. Two months later, he joined the New York Philharmonic for its U.S. premiere. From ominous Nocturne to spectacular Burlesque, it has become not only a virtuoso vehicle for the soloist but a masterpiece for all time.

Sakari Oramo is music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and principal conductor of Kokkola Opera. Beginning in the 2008–09 season, he will take up the post of chief conductor and artistic advisor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. An accomplished violinist, Mr. Oramo was originally concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, during which time he enrolled in Jorma Panula’s conducting class at the Sibelius Academy. In 1993, one year after completing the course, still concertmaster, he replaced an ailing conductor at very short notice, and the resulting concert was an unprecedented success, leading to the announcement of his appointment as associate principal conductor.

Mr. Oramo was appointed music director of the CBSO in September 1999. During his eight seasons there he has taken the orchestra on tour to France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Croatia, Estonia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Romania, and to the Schleswig Holstein Festival. In May 2003 Mr. Oramo was artistic director of the CBSO’s Floof, an acclaimed new music festival. He conducts regularly in Finland and throughout Scandinavia as well as Europe and the United States. Highlights of the current season include his tour of Japan with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and of Europe with the CBSO, and concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra. Mr. Oramo has recorded for the Ondine label as a conductor with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, in addition to recordings featuring him as violinist. His recording for Hyperion of all the Saint-Saëns piano concertos with the CBSO and Stephen Hough won awards from Diapason d’Or, a Choc from Monde de la Musique, a 2003 Grammy nomination, and designation as Gramophone magazine’s 2002 Concerto Record of the Year and Recording of the Year. He has also recorded Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Leila Josefowicz (Warner Classics). Mr. Oramo last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in November 2004.

Violinist Lisa Batiashvili’s 2009–10 season includes concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Yannick Nezet Seguin; Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester with Franz Welser-Möst; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta; and a return to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (with Esa-Pekka Salonen). She also gives a series of recitals, including concerts at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Brussels’s Palais des Beaux Arts, and Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet. She is featured every season with the world’s great orchestras, including, in the U.S., the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestras; and in Europe the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, and Orchestre de Paris. Other regular relationships include the London, NHK, and Sydney symphony orchestras.

Chamber music is also an important part of Ms. Batiashvili’s schedule, and she appears regularly with festivals such as Salzburg, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Marlboro, Tanglewood, Saratoga, Schleswig-Holstein, Schubertiade, and Kuhmo. Her chamber partners include pianists Adrian Brendel and Till Fellner, oboist Francois Leuleux, and violist Lawrence Power. She has given the world premieres of three works in recent seasons, including Magnus Lindberg’s Violin Concerto, which she recorded for Sony together with the Sibelius Violin Concerto.

In 1995, at the age of 16, Lisa Batiashvili was awarded second prize in the Sibelius Competition in Helsinki. In 2001, as one of the first BBC “New Generation Artists.” In 2003 she was named winner of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival’s Leonard Bernstein Award and was later awarded the Beethoven Ring Prize from the Beethoven Festival Bonn. In 2008 she was honored with the MIDEM Classical Award and the Choc de L’année for her debut album with Sony. The same year she received an ECHO Klassik award. Recently, she was the winner of the International Accademia Musicale Chigiana Prize in Siena.

Ms. Batiashivili has lived in Munich since 1994. She studied with Ana Chumachenko at the city's Musikhochschule, and previously, with Mark Lubotski at the Musikhochschule, Hamburg. She plays the 1709 “Engleman” Stradivarius, on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

“Batiashvili’s playing is full of mood, poise and charisma.” New York Times

“How fortunate it was that Lisa Batiashvili breathed life into every tone…she played. The young Georgian, unhindered by any technical difficulty, achieved a luminous intimacy, gripping and inspired, masterly and intelligent. A radiant debut.” Der Tagesspiegel

“It’s been a while since a debut at Tanglewood created quite the sensation that Lisa Batiashvili, an unheralded violinist from Asian Georgia in her mid-20s, set off Friday night. The audience all but tore the place down.” Berkshire Eagle/Tanglewood

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Carter Brey was appointed Principal Cellist of the New York Philharmonic in 1996, and made his subscription debut as soloist with the Orchestra in May 1997, performing Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations led by then-Music Director Kurt Masur. He has performed as soloist in subsequent seasons in the Elgar Cello Concerto with André Previn conducting; in William Schuman’s A Song of Orpheus with Christian Thielemann; in Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote with Music Director Lorin Maazel and with former Music Director Zubin Mehta; and in the Brahms Double Concerto with Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and conductor Christoph Eschenbach. The Brahms was repeated at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2002 as part of Kurt Masur’s final concerts as Philharmonic Music Director.

Carter Brey rose to international attention in 1981 as a prizewinner in the Rostropovich International Cello Competition. Subsequent appearances with Mstislav Rostropovich and the National Symphony Orchestra were unanimously praised. The winner of the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Prize, Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Young Concert Artists’ Michaels Award, and other honors, he also was the first musician to win the Arts Council of America’s Performing Arts Prize, and has performed as soloist with many of America’s major symphony orchestras.

His chamber music career is equally distinguished. He has made regular appearances with the Tokyo and Emerson string quartets as well as The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Spoleto Festival in the U.S. and Italy, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music and La Jolla Chamber Music festivals, among others. He presents an ongoing series of duo recitals with pianist Christopher O’Riley; together they have recorded The Latin American Album, a disc of compositions from South America and Mexico (Helicon Records). His recording with Garrick Ohlsson of the complete works of Chopin for cello and piano was released by Arabesque in the fall of 2002 to great acclaim.

Mr. Brey was educated at the Peabody Institute, where he studied with Laurence Lesser and Stephen Kates, and at Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot, and where he was a Wardwell Fellow and a Houpt Scholar. He lives in New York City with his wife, Ilaria Dagnini Brey, and their two children, Ottavia and Lucas. Among his outside interests are marathon running, ballroom dancing, and sailing (he holds two U.S. Sailing certifications and restored a classic sloop that he sails out of City Island).

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Violinist Sheryl Staples joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal Associate Concertmaster (The Elizabeth G. Beinecke Chair) in 1998, and made her solo debut with the Orchestra in 1999. Previously she was the associate concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra and concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony and Santa Barbara Chamber orchestras. She has appeared as soloist with more than 40 orchestras, including The Cleveland Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic; participated in the Santa Fe, La Jolla, Brightstar, Martha’s Vineyard, and Seattle chamber music festivals; and been a faculty artist at the Aspen, Bowdoin, and Sarasota music festivals. She is a former member of The Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio, and currently performs with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles and the Lyric Chamber Music Society. Ms. Staples was a scholarship student at the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences, Young Musicians Foundation Scholar, and W.M. Keck Scholar at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, spending summers at the Encore School for Strings. She earned an artist diploma from the University of Southern California. Ms. Staples performs on the “Kartman” Guarnerius del Gesù, ca. 1728.

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