MUTTER BASHMET HARRELL TRIO

Mutter Bashmet Harrell Trio

Mutter Bashmet Harrell Trio: Three premier soloists join to form a chamber ensemble par excellence.

Anne-Sophie Mutte

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon: the virtuoso has now been a fixture in all the world’s major concert halls, making her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor and visionary.

The four-time Grammy® Award winner is equally committed to the performance of traditional composers as to the future of music: so far she has given world premieres of 31 works – Thomas Adès, Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann and John Williams have all composed for Anne-Sophie Mutter. She dedicates herself to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite and numerous benefit projects. Furthermore, the board of trustees of the German cancer charity “Deutsche Krebshilfe” elected her the new president of the non-profit organization in 2021. Since January 2022, she joins the foundation board of the Lucerne Festival. In the autumn of 1997 she founded the “Association of Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation e.V.”, to which the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation was added in 2008. These two charitable institutions provide support for the scholarship recipients, support which is tailored to the fellows’ individual needs. Since 2011, Anne-Sophie Mutter has regularly shared the spotlight on stage with her ensemble of fellows, “Mutter’s Virtuosi”.

Given Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which is in violation of international law, Anne-Sophie Mutter has been playing four benefit concerts for its victims in March and April 2022 – and more are to follow. “Everyone can and must help now,” says the artist. “Words alone are not enough. This is a humanitarian catastrophe – we must stand with the people in Ukraine and with the refugees as well.”

AWARDS
In March 2022 the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow bestowed an honorary doctorate upon her. In October 2019, Anne-Sophie Mutter was honoured to receive the Praemium Imperiale in the music category; in June she received the Polar Music Prize. Poland awarded the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for Cultural Achievements to Anne-Sophie Mutter in March 2018, making her the first German artist to receive such an honour. In February 2018 she was named an Honorary Member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Romania awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in the rank of a Grand Officer to Anne-Sophie Mutter in November 2017; during the same month France honoured her by presenting her with the insignia of a Commander of the French Order of the Arts and Literature. In December 2016, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports awarded her the “Medalla de oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes” (Gold Medal for Merits in the Fine Arts). In January 2015 Anne-Sophie Mutter was named an Honorary Fellow of Keble College at the University of Oxford. In October 2013 she became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, after winning the medal of the Lutoslawski Society (Warsaw) in January. In 2012 the Atlantic Council bestowed the Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award upon her. In 2011 she received the Brahms Prize as well as the Erich Fromm Prize and the Gustav Adolf Prize for her social activism. In 2010 the Technical-Scientific University of Norway in Trondheim bestowed an honorary doctorate upon her; in 2009 she won the European St. Ulrich Award as well as the Cristobal Gabarron Award. In 2008 Anne-Sophie Mutter was the recipient of the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize as well as the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize. The violinist has been awarded the German Grand Order of Merit, the French Medal of the Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, and numerous other honors.

Lynn Harrell

Born: January 30, 1944 – Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
Died: April 27, 2020 – Santa Monica, California, USA

The American cellist, Lynn Harrell, was born to musician parents: his father was the baritone Mack Harrell and his mother, Marjorie McAlister Fulton (1909-1962), was a violinist. At the age of 8, he decided to learn to play the cello, taking initial lessons with Heinrich Joachim of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. When he was 12, his family moved to Dallas, Texas, where he studied with excellent teacher in Lev Aronson (1912-1988), the first to recognize his talent. Harrell says that Aronson “showed me passion, for the instrument, for music and for life.” After attending Denton High School, Harrell studied at the Juilliard School in New York, studying with the renowned Leonard Rose. Harrell then went to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia for further studies with Orlando Cole, who recommended that he join an orchestra as preparation for his desired solo career. He made his debut in 1961 playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

When Lynn Harrell was 15 years, 11 months old (1960), his father died of cancer. When Harrell was 18 years, 9 months (November 1962), his mother, while on the faculty as violinist in residence at the University of North Texas College of Music, died from injuries sustained from a two-vehicle crash while traveling from Denton to Fort Worth with pianist Jean Mainous to perform a recital. Just before his mother had died, in April 1962, Harrell had withdrawn from Denton High School in his junior year to advance to the semifinals of the Second International Tchaikovsky Competition competition in Moscow.

Lynn Harrell made his recital debut in New York in 1971. For his first engagement in New York, the initial audience turnout was dismal. He subsisted on a small number of concerts, and managed to attract the attention of savvy New York impresarios. In 1972 he was invited to appear as soloist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The New York Times enthused, “This young man has everything.” His career began to build and in 1975 it reached a decisive turning point when he won the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, launching his solo career into the international limelight.

Subsequently, Lynn Harrell became known as one of the world’s finest cellists, performing internationally as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with leading orchestras and ensembles. His presence was felt throughout the musical world. A consummate soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, conductor and teacher, his work throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia placed him in the highest echelon of today’s performing artists.

Lynn Harrell was a frequent guest of many leading orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC). In Europe he partners with the orchestras of London, Munich, Berlin, Tonhalle and Israel. He also toured extensively to Australia and New Zealand as well as the Far East, including Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the summer of 1999 Harrell was featured in a three-week “Lynn Harrell Cello Festival” with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He regularly collaborates with such noted conductors as James Levine, Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Leonard Slatkin, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas and David Zinman.

Among Lynn Harrell’s chamber music partners are pianists Vladimir Ashkenazy, Michel Béroff, Bruno Canino, Stephen Kovacevich, Robert Levin and Konstantin Lifschitz; violinists Nigel Kennedy, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Itzhak Perlman; clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and others.

An important part of Lynn Harrell’s life was summer music festivals, which include appearances at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Aspen and Grand Tetons festivals, and the Amelia Island Festival. A special part of his life was the Aspen Music Festival, where he spent his summers performing and teaching for nearly 50 years. He was the recipient of numerous awards including the Piatigorsky Award, and the Ford Foundation Concert Artists’ Award.

On April 7, 1994, Lynn Harrell appeared at the Vatican with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gilbert Levine in the Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah. The audience for this historic event, which was the Vatican’s first official commemoration of the Holocaust, included Pope John Paul II and the Chief Rabbi of Rome. Harrell also appeared on the 1994 Grammy Awards broadcast, performing with Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. In recent seasons Harrell particularly enjoyed collaboratwith violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist, André Previn. In January 2004 the trio appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performing the L.v. Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Maestro Kurt Masur conducting.

Lynn Harrell had played a 1720 Montagnana cello he bought with the proceeds of his parents’ estate and also a 1673 Antonio Stradivarius cello that belonged to the late British cellist Jacqueline du Pré. His last instrument was a 2008 cello by Christopher Dungey.

Yuri Bashmet

Artistic Director and Chief Conductor, Symphony Orchestra “Novaya Rossya”

Artistic Director, Moscow Soloists chamber Ensemble

Founder, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor, Youth Symphony Orchestra of Russia

Through his virtuosity, strength of personality and high intelligence, Yuri Bashmet has given the viola a new prominence in musical life.

The pre-eminent viola player of the modern age, he has motivated the leading composers of our time to expand the repertoire with significant new music. He is Artistic Director of the December Nights Festival, Moscow, Principal Conductor of the Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra, and is the founder/director of Moscow Soloists. He also appears throughout the world in the dual role of conductor/soloist.

Born in 1953 in Rostov-on-Don in Russia, he spent his childhood in Lviv in Ukraine before studying at the Moscow Conservatoire with Vadim Borisovsky (of the Beethoven Quartet) and Feodor Druzhinin. His international career was launched in 1976 when he won the International Viola Competition in Munich. Since then he has appeared with all the world’s great orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston, Chicago and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra, which presented its own Yuri Bashmet Festival.

He has inspired many composers to write for him, more then 55 viola concertos was wrote for him. Yury Bashmet enjoyed strong personal and professional relationships with Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina in particular. Schnittke’s Viola Concerto, written for him, is now firmly established in the repertoire. Other concertos composed for him include works by Poul Ruders, Alexander Tchaikovsky and Alexander Raskatov. He has also given the world premieres of Styx by Giya Kancheli, The Myrrh Bearer by John Tavener and On Opened Ground by Mark-Anthony Turnage – all of which were written for him.

In December 2002 Bashmet became Principal Conductor of the newly formed Symphony Orchestra of New Russia, with which he has embarked upon a series of concerts in Moscow, with touring plans in Russia, Italy, France and the UK. Other orchestras with which he appears as conductor/soloist include the Dresdner Philharmoniker, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Tokyo Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi,Camerata Salzburg, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Brussels Philharmonic. He is also founder of Moscow Soloists, an ensemble he has performed with and directed throughout the world since 1992. This renowned chamber orchestra has been rapturously received in Moscow, Amsterdam, Paris, Tokyo, New York and at the BBC Proms, London.