Ani Batikian Violin
Gusztáv
Fenyő Piano
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Programme
Sonata for Violin and Piano Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)Sonata for Violin and Piano in F minor Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953)
Sonata for Violin and Piano Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)
Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921)
Ani Batikian
"Player of great stature and powerful personality.... A real performer of the highest level"
David Strange, Head of String Department Royal Academy of Music, London
Armenian violinist Ani Batikian was only 15 years old when she entered the Yerevan State Conservatoire, being the youngest student ever to study there."...a wonderful violinist despite her youth."
Michael Tumelty, The Herald
She has performed as a soloist with the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, Armenian Baroque Orchestra, Katrineholm Symphony Orchestra in Sweden and Yerevan Youth Orchestra, as well as on radio and TV. Festival appearances include the “Music Alp” Festival in France and Levon Chilingirian Festival in Armenia. She has performed with distinguished musicians such as Levon Chilingirian, Ida and Ani Kavafians and Alexander Chaushian, and with the Hebrides Ensemble in Glasgow, as well as playing in masterclasses given by many international artists, including Ilya Gringolts, Renaud Capucon, Tasmin Little, Thomas Brandis, Mauricio Fuks, Tibor Varga, Joji Hattori, Sylvia Rosenberg and Zvi Zeitlin.
Ani Batikian has won prizes in several national and international competitions in Armenia, including the Levon Chilingirian Competition, International Hildegard Pabelick Jentsch Competition and All Armenian Competition. In 2003 she was awarded the R. Manoukian full scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music, London, receiving high commendations in the Wilfred Parry and Marjorie Hayward Prize competitions. In 2006 she was awarded an International Scholarship to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama with Prof. Peter Lissauer, where she has won numerous prizes, including the Hilda Bailey, David Knox Memorial, Dunbar-Gerber Chamber Music, Mabel Glover String Quartet and Governor’s Prize for Chamber Music. Recently she received an award from the Dewar Arts Awards to purchase an instrument.
Gusztáv Fenyő
‘...a pianist of world class... due to his intelligent understanding of the meaning and direction of whatever he plays.’
Sunday Telegraph, Sydney
Since settling in Glasgow in 1980, Gusztáv Fenyő has been one of Scotland’s leading musicians. He is well-known for his cycles of works by one composer, including Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas, which he performed in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1999, to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death, he performed the complete solo piano works of Chopin in Glasgow, opposite the venue where Chopin himself played in 1848. In 2006 he gave the first complete Glasgow performance of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes & Fugues at the refurbished City Halls, in celebration of the composer’s centenary.‘Mr Fenyő has, indeed, the kind of musical charisma that seems to sharpen the listener’s powers of concentration, rewarding them with a satisfied feeling of musical inevitability.’
The Herald, Glasgow
A descendant of the great Hungarian violinist, Joseph Joachim, Gusztáv Fenyő first came into prominence as a teenager when he won the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s annual concerto competition playing Liszt’s E flat concerto. Following a period of study in London with Schnabel’s disciple, Maria Curcio, he continued his studies under Pál Kadosa at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, during which time he gave numerous Hungarian premières by composers such as Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis, Cage and Takemitsu, as well as having many works written for him.
At his London début at the Wigmore Hall in 1978, Gusztáv Fenyő premièred some of the 'Games' by the then barely-known Hungarian composer György Kurtág. He has since played a comprehensive solo, chamber and concerto repertoire, from Bach to the present day, in three continents. Orchestras have included the Philharmonia (London), BBC Scottish, Hungarian Radio & Television, Bucharest Philharmonic, and the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, under conductors such as Frémaux, Osawa, Iwaki and Fürst. He regularly performs with violinist Susanne Stanzeleit, and other chamber music partners have included violinists Alexander Janiczek and Jack Liebeck, violists James Boyd and Roger Chase, cellists Adrian Brendel and Raphael Wallfisch, clarinettists Gervase de Peyer and Michael Collins, and fellow pianists Zoltán Kocsis and Balázs Szokolay.
Gusztáv Fenyő has broadcast for the BBC, Australian Broadcasting Commission and Hungarian Radio, and his commercial recordings include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Delius and Bartók.
From 1980 to 1992 he was Lecturer of Piano at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He has also given masterclasses in leading institutions in the UK, USA, Australia and Hungary, working alongside such distinguished teachers as Vesselin Paraschkevov and Felix Andrievsky.
In 1995 Gusztáv Fenyő inaugurated his summer chamber music festival in the Scottish Borders which, from 1998 to 2005, was has been held at Paxton House, a partner-gallery of the National Galleries of Scotland. Featuring some of Britain’s outstanding chamber musicians, its reputation grew under his artistic direction to become Scotland’s premier chamber music festival.