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Winner of Gramophone's "Recording of the Year 2016" award, Igor
Levit has established himself as "one of the essential artists of
his generation" (The New Yok Times). The press attests to his
performing with a "wealth of meaning without artifice" (Washington
Post) leaving the listener "speechless with amazement and
admiration" (The Telegraph).
The 2017-18 season marks highly-anticipated debuts including
performances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Jakub Hrusa),
the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (Sakari Oramo), the
Vienna and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras (both with Manfred
Honeck) and reunites him - amongst others - with the Deutsche
Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich (Lionel
Bringuier). Summer 2017 marks a performance at the Opening Night of
the prestigious BBC Proms alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra
under the baton of Ed Gardner, his debut at the Salzburg Festival
and a residency at Germany's Rheingau Music Festival before Igor
Levit embarks on a tour of Asia with the Bavarian State Orchestra
under Kirill Petrenko.
Recital performances will see him return to his hometown to play
at the Berlin Philharmonie as well as making debuts in Stockholm
and Barcelona. After the immense success of his Beethoven sonata
cycle at London's Wigmore Hall in 2016 - 17, he will take the cycle
to Munich's Prinzregententheater and continue the cycle started at
the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels in the previous season.
Highlights of past seasons included orchestral debuts with the
Bavarian State Orchestra (Kirill Petrenko), Berliner Philharmoniker
(Riccardo Chailly), Staatskapelle Dresden (Christian Thielemann),
Cleveland Orchestra (Franz Welser-Möst) and London Symphony
Orchestra (Fabio Luisi). Recital appearances of 2016 - 17 saw
"hypnotic" (The New York Times) and "transfixing" (The Boston
Globe) debuts at Carnegie Hall, Chicago's Symphony Center, Boston's
Celebrity Series, at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, with Lisbon's
Gulbenkian Foundation, at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie and the Lucerne
Piano Festival.
An exclusive recording artist for Sony Classical, Igor Levit's
debut disc of the five last Beethoven Sonatas won the BBC Music
Magazine Newcomer of the Year 2014 Award, the Royal Philharmonic
Society's Young Artist Award 2014 and the ECHO Klassik 2014 for
Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano). In October
2015, Sony Classical released Igor Levit's third solo album in
cooperation with the Festival Heidelberger Frühling featuring
Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Diabelli
Variations and Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be
Defeated!, which has been awarded the "Recording of the Year"
and "Instrumental Award" at the 2016 Gramophone Classical Music
Awards.
Born in Nizhni Nowgorod in 1987, Igor Levit at age eight moved
with his family to Germany. He completed his piano studies at
Hannover Academy of Music, Theatre and Media in 2009 with the
highest academic and performance scores in the history of the
institute. Igor Levit has studied under the tutelage of
Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Matti Raekallio, Bernd Goetze, Lajos
Rovatkay and Hans Leygraf. As the youngest participant in 2005
Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, Igor Levit won the
Silver Prize, as well as the Prize for Best Performer of Chamber
Music, the Audience Favorite Prize and the Prize for Best Performer
of Contemporary Music.
In Berlin, where he makes his home, Igor Levit is playing on a
Steinway D Grand Piano kindly given to him by the Trustees of
Independent Opera at Sadler's Wells.
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Igor Levit, piano
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Deemed "superheroes of the new music world" (Boston Globe), the
JACK Quartet is "the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying
impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity and a
take-no-prisoners sense of commitment." (Washington Post) "They are
a musical vehicle of choice to the next great composers who walk
among us." (Toronto Star).
The recipient of Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New
Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for
Adventurous Programming, JACK has performed to critical acclaim at
Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Miller Theatre (USA),
Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ
(Netherlands), IRCAM (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), the
Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy),
Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival
Internacional Cervatino (Mexico), and Teatro Colón (Argentina).
Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman,
violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK is
focused on new work, leading them to collaborate with composers
John Luther Adams, Chaya Czernowin, Simon Steen-Andersen, Caroline
Shaw, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Matthias Pintscher, and John
Zorn. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Derek Bermel,
Cenk Ergün, Roger Reynolds, Toby Twining, and Georg Friedrich
Haas.
JACK operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the
performance, commissioning, and spread of new string quartet music.
Dedicated to education, the quartet spends two weeks each summer
teaching at New Music on the Point, a contemporary chamber music
festival in Vermont for young performers and composers. JACK has
long-standing relationships with the University of Iowa String
Quartet Residency Program, where they teach and collaborate with
students each fall, and the Boston University Center for New Music,
where they visit each semester. Additionally, the quartet
makes regular visits to schools including Columbia University,
Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University,
Stanford University, and the University of Washington.
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JACK Quartet
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