Gil and Orli Shaham
February 12, 2008
Mozart: Sonata in D major, K. 306
Fauré: Two movements from “Pelléas et Melisande”
Szymanowski: Mythes, Op. 30
Bartók: Rhapsody No. 2
Prokofiev: Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 94a
About the Artists
Gil Shaham
Violinist Gil Shaham is internationally recognised by audiences and critics alike as one of today’s most virtuosic and engaging classical artists. He is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with celebrated orchestras and conductors, as well as for recital and ensemble appearances on the great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.
Mr. Shaham’s 2006-07 season highlights include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Houston Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, and U.S. tours with both the Chicago Symphony and Orpheus. In addition to recital tours in Europe and Japan he will appear abroad with the orchestras of Berlin, Copenhagen and Moscow, and with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as part of their 70th Anniversary concerts.
In addition to his many orchestral engagements Mr. Shaham regularly tours in recital with pianist, Akira Eguchi. He has the good fortune to enjoy musical collaboration with his family as well, including his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, his sister pianist Orli Shaham and his brother-in-law, conductor David Robertson. In summer and autumn 2006, he will join Yefim Bronfman and Truls Mørk touring and recording piano trios of Tchaikowsky and Schubert. In spring 2007 his dream of bringing together friends and colleagues for chamber music will come to fruition in a tour of Brahms programs, culminating in a series of three concerts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall.
Among his more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs, are a number of best sellers, appearing on record charts in the US and abroad. These recordings have earned prestigious awards including multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diaposon d’or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Mr. Shaham’s most recent recordings have been produced for his own label Canary Classics – The Faure Album with Akira Eguchi and the Prokofiev Album with Orli Shaham.
Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel where at the age of 7 he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music and granted annual scholarships by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, while studying with Haim Taub in Jerusalem, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic. That same year he began his studies with Dorothy DeLay and Jens Ellerman at Aspen. In 1982, after taking first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition, he became a scholarship student at Juilliard, where he has worked with Ms. DeLay and Hyo Kang. He has also studied at Columbia University.
Gil Shaham was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990. He plays the 1699 ‘Countess Polignac’ Stradivarius. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony and their two children.
Orli Shaham
Pianist Orli Shaham has established an impressive international reputation as one of today's most gifted pianists. Whether revealing the power of Prokofiev, the sensuousness of Ravel, the elegance of Mozart, or the brilliant energy of John Adams, she has a way of transforming every note into an exhilarating communication with her audience. In addition to her prodigious technical skills, she plays with an infectious joy and innate musicality that make her a charismatic performer who never fails to elicit standing ovations and critical raves. Hailed for her "fabulous pianissimo" (The New York Times) and combination of "confidence with reflective grace, digital wizardry with subtlety of touch" (The Cleveland Plain Dealer) --she expresses passion and deep understanding in all she plays.
Ms. Shaham has performed numerous times with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, San Francisco, and the Saint Louis Symphonies--with whom she appeared in her Carnegie Hall debut; has performed at the Ravinia and Verbier Festivals, and put in regular appearances at the Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Caramoor, Spoleto festivals; has given numerous acclaimed recitals, including in New York, Washington, DC, and Munich; and has collaborated with her brother, violinist Gil Shaham, on three CDs.
Her active 2006-2007 concert schedule takes her across the globe--from the United States to Europe to Australia. Ms. Shaham travels to Australia to play the Dvo?ák Piano Concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She performs Grieg's Piano Concerto on a 5-city tour with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Saint Louis Symphony under Robert Spano. In early 2007 she makes her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra debut under Jun Märkl in Olivier Messiaen's avian fantasy Oiseaux exotiques. She performed Oiseaux exotiques at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, about which The New York Times raved "the brilliant pianist Orli Shaham [played] the wildly difficult solo part." Ms. Shaham will again perform at Carnegie's Zankel Hall with Gil Shaham in a performance as part of The Intimate Brahms series. Ms. Shaham will perform a six concert series with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under David Robertson. She also appears under the auspices of Chamber Music Sedona and on Omaha's Tuesday Musical Concert Series as part of a recital tour in the Fall. She reprises her acclaimed duo performances with Gil Shaham in Europe in Italy and Spain in November, 2006.
Some career highlights include several tours of Japan and performances with the National, Houston, New World, San Diego, Detroit, Jerusalem, Sydney, La Scala, and Bilbao Symphonies, the Orchestre National de Lyon and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the Rochester and Florida Philharmonics, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Orchestra della Toscana. Orli Shaham has worked with such conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, Wolfgang Sawallisch, and Leonard Slatkin, and has toured extensively with Gil Shaham. International recital engagements have taken her to cities throughout Italy, Spain, France, and Germany.
In 2005 Ms. Shaham began an on-going collaboration with Classical Public Radio Network as the host of "Dial-a-Musician," a feature she created especially for the radio network's morning show. The concept of the program is to enhance listeners' experiences of music and musicians, and during the feature she directs listeners' questions about classical music to fellow musicians - literally by dialing them up for the correct answer. Composer John Adams, pianists Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman, Emerson String Quartet violinist Philip Setzer, superstar soprano Natalie Dessay, and St. Louis Symphony Music Director David Robertson have all been guests on the program.
Orli Shaham and her older brother Gil Shaham have released a Deutsche Grammophon recording entitled Dvo?ák for Two, an all-Prokofiev disc The Prokofiev Album on Canary Classics, ("As fine a recording of the violin and piano music of Prokofiev as has ever been made by one of the finest violinist and pianist teams of the last ten years." Barnes&Noble.com.), and most recently, Mozart in Paris, also on Canary Classics as well as a Euroarts DVD of their performace of the Mozart Violin Sonatas. When performing this recorded repertoire live in duo appearances, the result is a glorious "sibling revelry" (The Plain Dealer)--musical chemistry, nourished by their shared family history and a comfortable give-and-take.
Orli Shaham is a generous artist, whether giving an interview, offering a play/talk presentation for donors, spearheading a residency in a tour city, or sharing her experiences and inspiring young musicians in master classes. In October 2002, she was an artist-in-residence on National Public Radio's "Performance Today," where she participated in numerous interviews and solo performances, she has appeared on Robert Kapilow's "What Makes it Great?" series in New York and Boston, has taught music literature at Columbia University, and contributed articles to Piano Today, Symphony, and Playbill magazines. She won the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant, prestigious prizes given to further the development of outstanding talent.
Born in 1975 in Israel, Orli Shaham was recognized early for her prodigious talents and received her first scholarship for musical study from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation at the age of five. She studied with Luisa Yoffe at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem and at age seven, traveled to New York with her family to begin study with Nancy Stessin. One year later, she became a scholarship student of Herbert Stessin at The Juilliard School, graduating from the Horace Mann School and earning a degree in history at Columbia University. She is married to conductor David Robertson and has two stepsons, Peter and Jonathan.