Rachel Portman: Tipping Points Niklas Liepe, WDR Funkhausorchester & Erina Yashim

• Rachel Portman (b. 1960): Tipping Points:
• 1 Portman: Tipping Points: Invocation (Poem) 01:14
• 2 Portman: Tipping Points: I. Invocation 03:18
• 3 Portman: Tipping Points: Air (Poem) 01:18
• 4 Portman: Tipping Points: II. Air 05:03
• 5 Portman: Tipping Points: Water (Poem) 01:26
• 6 Portman: Tipping Points: III. Water 03:04
• 7 Portman: Tipping Points: Fire (Poem) 01:13
• 8 Portman: Tipping Points: IV. Fire 04:25
• 9 Portman: Tipping Points: Earth (Poem) 01:12
• 10 Portman: Tipping Points: V. Earth 05:09
• 11 Portman: Tipping Points: Epilogue (Poem) 01:15
• 12 Portman: Tipping Points: VI. Epilogue 04:05
• Total Runtime 32:42

Info for Rachel Portman: Tipping Points

For his new album, which will be released on 5 April, violinist Niklas Liepe has collaborated with Oscar-winning composer Rachel Portman to create a powerful musical appeal for the preservation of nature. "Tipping Points" is a film music-like, six-part suite for violin and orchestra, recorded with the WDR Funkhausorchester under the direction of Erina Yashima. Four of the sound-painting movements are dedicated to the four elements of nature: fire, water, earth and air. The suite is introduced by a call for mindfulness towards nature ("Invocation") and ends with an "Epilogue", which calls for a rethink and active action for the preservation of nature. The second world premiere recording on the album is "The New Four Seasons", an almost cinematic-sounding new version of Antonio Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" by Wolf Kerschek, which also deals with the changing of the seasons over the course of time.

Niklas Liepe, violine
WDR Funkhausorchester
Erina Yashim, conductor

Niklas Liepe
The Opus Klassik award winner Niklas Liepe is one of those highly talented young soloists who consistently follow their own path. One of those artists who are constantly hatching new ideas and in doing so also tackle undertakings that really demand courage: because their concept and artistic aspirations verge on the presumptuous.

With his Paganini project, Niklas Liepe from Hamburg, Germany, has caused astonishment and glowing reviews internationally in recent years. He has commissioned around twenty composers and arrangers to provide Niccolò Paganini's hair-raisingly difficult caprices for solo violin with orchestral accompaniments - but in such a way that each of the pieces appears in a different stylistic guise.

Foxtrot and tango, jazz and romantic bombast alternate in these amusing as well as provocative reinterpretations, while the original violin part always remains untouched.

In 2017, he founded the "Liepe & Co. Festival in the Stahlhallen am Südbahnhof in Hannover" together with his brother, pianist Nils Liepe, where he also explores the boundaries of classical music in a new way.

In the fall of 2020, his second CD project #GoldergReflections together with conductor Jamie Phillips and the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover was released by SONY Classical.

In 2021, Niklas Liepe won the Opus Klassik.

Niklas Liepe recently made debuts at the Rheingau Music Festival, the Ocean Sun Festival in Helsinki, the Musikverein Vienna, La Seine Musicale Paris and the Beethovenfest Bonn. In the current and past seasons, he has performed with the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the WDR Funkhausorchester, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra in Europe and Asia, among others. In addition, in the 2023/24 season he will be a guest at the Elbphilharmonie, the Berlin Philharmonie and will make his debut with the Norrlandsoperan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Jessica Cottis.

At the Beethovenfest Bonn, the violin concerto composed for Niklas Liepe by Oscar winner Rachel Portman was premiered and recorded on the SONY Classical label with the WDR Funkhausorchester and Erina Yashima.

Niklas Liepe is a lecturer at Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz and The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

Niklas Liepe has performed with artists such as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Fazil Say, Christoph Eschenbach and Andras Schiff.

As a soloist, Niklas Liepe also performs with various orchestras such as the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Bratislava, the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken/ Kaiserslautern under conductors such as Jamie Phillips, Garry Walker, Hartmut Haenchen, Christoph Koncz, Christoph Eschenbach and András Schiff. He also studied at the Hanover Conservatory with Prof. Krzysztof Wegrzyn, at the Cologne Conservatory with Prof. Zakhar Bron and at the Kronberg Academy with Prof. Ana Chumachenco and Prof. Mihaela Martin. He completed his master's degree in chamber music with Prof. Oliver Wille in Hannover.

Since 2022 Niklas Liepe is working at the Musikhochschule Hamburg in the subject "Art Participation & Strings Diversity".

This album contains no booklet.