Michael Ponti
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Michael Ponti
Michael Ponti (29 October 1937 – 17 October 2022) was a German-American classical pianist. He was the first to record the complete piano works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. He made more than 80 recordings, around 50 of rarely played concertos from the Romantic period, often the only recording of these works at the time. He played and recorded chamber music with his Ponti-Zimansky-Polasek Trio. Life and career Ponti was born in Freiburg im Breisgau; his father was a U.S. diplomat, and his German mother later became an American citizen. He lived in the United States for most of his childhood and youth. While still attending school in Washington, D.C., he received piano lessons for ten years, seven of them with Gilmour McDonald, who had studied with Leopold Godowsky. At age eleven, he played both parts of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in four recitals at the YMCA in Washington from memory. The family returned to Germany in 1955. Ponti studied at the Musikhochschule ...
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Freiburg Im Breisgau
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as of 31 December 2018), Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim, and Karlsruhe. The population of the Freiburg metropolitan area was 656,753 in 2018. In the Southern Germany, south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg (Freiburg), Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain. A famous old German university town, and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Freiburg, archiepiscopal seat, Freiburg was incorporated in the early twelfth century and developed into a major commercial, intellectual, an ...
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Queen Elisabeth Competition
The Queen Elisabeth Competition ( nl, Koningin Elisabethwedstrijd, french: Concours musical international Reine Élisabeth) is an international competition for career-starting musicians held in Brussels. The competition is named after Queen Elisabeth of Belgium (1876–1965). It is a competition for classical violinists (from 1937 to present), pianists (1938 to present), singers (1988 to present) and cellists (2017 to present). It also used to hold international competitions for composers from 1953 to 2012. The current Patron is Queen Mathilde of Belgium. Since its foundation it has been considered one of the most challenging and prestigious competitions for instrumentalists. In 1957 the Queen Elisabeth Competition was one of the founding members of the World Federation of International Music Competitions. History Eugène Ysaÿe, Belgian concert-violinist, wanted to set up an international music competition for young virtuosi showcasing their all-round skill, but died befo ...
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Robert Zimansky
Robert Zimansky (born 20 April 1948, Iowa City, Iowa) is an American violinist living in Basel, Switzerland. After early studies with John Ferrell at the University of Iowa, Zimansky studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Sally Thomas and Ivan Galamian. He came to Europe in 1972 and held 1st Concertmaster positions in Munich, Stuttgart, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Zurich Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva. All of these orchestras allowed him the freedom to pursue his solo career. Robert Zimansky has performed as soloist with many conductors and toured with various chamber music groups. He conducted the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic and the Zurich Academy of Strings. From 1986 to 1992 he was a member of the board of directors of the Swiss “Tonkünstlerverein.” Between 1978 and 2002 he performed regularly in the piano trio with Michael Ponti and Jan Polasek in Europe. Since 2008 Robert Zimansky i ...
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Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti ( , ; born György Stern; 21 October 1912 – 5 September 1997) was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor, known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis' influence on Hungarian politics and, being of Jewish background, he fled the increasingly harsh Hungarian anti-Jewish laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist. After the war, Solti was appointed musical director of the Bavarian State O ...
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Stanisław Skrowaczewski
Stanislaw Pawel Stefan Jan Sebastian Skrowaczewski (; October 3, 1923 – February 21, 2017) was a Polish-American classical conductor and composer. Biography Skrowaczewski was born in Lwów, Second Polish Republic (now Lviv, Ukraine). His parents were Paweł and Zofia (Karszniewicz) Skrowaczewski."Skrowaczewski, Stanisław." (1996). In ''Who's Who in Polish America''. Ed. Bolesław Wierzbiański. New York: Bicentennial Publishing Corp., 417. His mother, an amateur pianist, began giving him lessons at the age of four, and he composed his first symphony by age eight. The Lwów Philharmonic performed one of his symphonies that same year.Drobnicki, John. (2011). "Skrowaczewski, Stanisław," in ''The Polish American Encyclopedia''. Ed. James S. Pula. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 486-487. He gave his first piano recital at age eleven, and then, at age thirteen, he conducted and was the soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor. He gave up any thought of pursuing a ...
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Sixten Ehrling
Evert Sixten Ehrling (3 April 1918 – 13 February 2005) was a Sweden, Swedish Conducting, conductor and Piano, pianist who, during a long career, served as the music director of the Royal Swedish Opera and the principal conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. Ehrling was born in Malmö, Sweden, the son of a banker. From the age of 18 he attended the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm. At the academy he studied the violin, Organ (music), organ, and piano as well as conducting. During World War II, he studied under both Karl Böhm and Albert Wolff (conductor), Albert Wolff. He made his public debut as a conductor with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 1950, conducting Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" from memory. In 1953 Ehrling was named the music director of the Royal Swedish Opera, a post he held until 1960. During these years he worked closely with the acclaimed singers tenor Jussi Björling and soprano Birgit Nilsson. In the early 1950 ...
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Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia ( en, National Academy of St Cecilia) is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, founded by the papal bull ''Ratione congruit'', issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western musical history: Gregory the Great, for whom the Gregorian chant is named, and Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Since 2005 it has been headquartered at the Renzo Piano designed Parco della Musica in Rome. It was founded as a "congregation", or "confraternity", and over the centuries has grown from a forum for local musicians and composers to an internationally acclaimed academy active in music scholarship (with 100 prominent music scholars forming the body of the Accademia), music education (in its role as a conservatory) and performance (with an active choir and a symphony orchestra, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia). The category of alumni of the associated conservatory (which in 1919 ...
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Bamberger Symphoniker
The Bamberg Symphony (German: Bamberger Symphoniker – Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie) is a German orchestra based in Bamberg. It is one of the most prestigious orchestras in Germany. The orchestra was formed in 1946 mainly from German musicians expelled from Czechoslovakia after WWII, who had previously been members of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague. The orchestra received the title of ''Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie'' (Bavarian State Philharmonic) in 1993. The orchestra commemorated its 60th anniversary on 16 March 2006. Since 1993, the home of the orchestra is the ''Konzert- und Kongresshalle'' (Concert and Congress Hall), which has the nickname ''Sinfonie an der Regnitz'' (Symphony on the Regnitz). Concerts before 1993 were given at the ''Dominikanerbau''. The orchestra receives financial support from the Free State of Bavaria, the city of Bamberg, Oberfranken district and the district of Bamberg. The government of Bavaria retired the orchestra's financial deb ...
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Buenos Aires Philharmonic
The Buenos Aires Philharmonic ( es, Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires) is an Argentinian orchestra based in Buenos Aires. Founded in 1946, it is based in the renowned Teatro Colón, and is considered one of the most prestigious orchestras in its nation and Latin America, and has received several honours in 60 years of history. Their local counterparts in the national aegis are the Argentine National Symphony Orchestra and the Teatro Colón Orchestra. The orchestra's current Music Director is Mexican Enrique Diemecke. History The Buenos Aires Philharmonic was created in 1946 with the name ''Orquesta Sinfónica del Teatro Municipal'', offering its first concert on May 21, 1947. Its first official conductor was Lamberto Baldi; years later, the position was taken over by Jaime Pahissa. In 1948 the orchestra changed its name to the Symphony orchestra of the city of Buenos Aires; this same year, celebrated conductor Herbert von Karajan conducted the orquestra on two occasions. In ...
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Orchestre De La Suisse Romande
The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR) is a Swiss symphony orchestra, based in Geneva at the Victoria Hall. In addition to symphony concerts, the OSR performs as the opera orchestra in productions at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. History Ernest Ansermet founded the OSR in 1918, together with Paul Lachenal, with a contingent of 48 players and a season of six months' duration. Besides Swiss musicians, the OSR players initially came from other countries, including Austria, France, Germany and Italy. Ansermet gradually increased the percentage of Swiss musicians in the orchestra, attaining 80% Swiss personnel by 1946. He remained the music director of the OSR for 49 years, from 1918 to 1967. A Swiss radio orchestra based in Lausanne was merged into the OSR in 1938. Subsequently, the OSR began to broadcast radio concerts regularly on Swiss radio. The orchestra had a long-standing contract for recordings with Decca Records, dating from the tenure of Ansermet, and made over 300 rec ...
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Piano Sonata
A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement ( Scarlatti, Liszt, Scriabin, Medtner, Berg), others with two movements (Haydn, Beethoven), some contain five (Brahms' Third Piano Sonata) or even more movements. The first movement is generally composed in sonata form. The Baroque keyboard sonata In the Baroque era, the use of the term "sonata" generally referred to either the sonata da chiesa (church sonata) or sonata da camera (chamber sonata), both of which were sonatas for various instruments (usually one or more violins plus basso continuo). The keyboard sonata was relatively neglected by most composers. The sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti (of which there are over 500) were the hallmark of the Baroque keyboard sonata, though they were, for the most part, unpublished during Scarlatti's lifetime. The majority of these sonatas are in one-m ...
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Iain Hamilton (composer)
Iain Ellis Hamilton (6 June 1922 – 21 July 2000) was a Scottish composer. Hamilton was born in Glasgow, but was educated in London, where he became an apprentice engineer. He remained in that profession for the next seven years. He undertook the study of music in his spare time. After winning a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music, which he entered in 1947,. Houghton Mifflin Company Reference Books, page 674; . (One or the other source had Royal Academy of Music or Royal College of Music wrong?) he decided to devote himself to a musical career. He earned the Bachelor of Music degree from the University of London and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Glasgow. Hamilton moved to the United States in 1962, but died in London, aged 78. Works Chamber and solo instrument *Antigone for Wind Octet (1991) *Aria for Horn and Piano *Brass Quintet (by 1991) *Capriccio for Trumpet and Piano *Five Scenes for Trumpet and Piano (1966) *Hyperio ...
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