Kristóf Baráti, Péter Bársony, Miklós Perényi, Veronika Oross, Miklós Spányi, Eszter Lesták Bedő, Gábor Bretz, Balázs Szokolay
Biography Kristóf Baráti, Péter Bársony, Miklós Perényi, Veronika Oross, Miklós Spányi, Eszter Lesták Bedő, Gábor Bretz, Balázs Szokolay
Gábor Bretz
Born in Budapest, Gábor Bretz began his vocal training with Stephan Czovek in Los Angeles and with Prof. Albert Antalffy in Budapest. He subsequently studied at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Music with Maria Fekete and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with Sandor Solyom-Nagy, and won the 2005 Maria Callas Grand Prix Competition in Athens.
Since graduating from the Franz Liszt Academy, Gábor’s regular performances at the Hungarian State Opera have included the title roles in Mefistofele and Le Nozze di Figaro, Leporello and the title-role in Don Giovanni, Banquo in Macbeth, Colline in La Bohème, Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Escamillo in Carmen, Gurnemanz in Parsifal, Zaccaria in Nabucco, Orestes in Elektra, Landgraf in Tannhauser at the Wagner Festival under Adam Fischer in Budapest.
Other notable appearances include the title role in Der fliegende Holländer at the Passionstheater GmbH in Oberammergau; Ferrando in Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera House; Escamillo in Carmen at the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the New National Theatre in Tokyo and the Hamburg State Opera; Colline in La Bohème at the Royal Opera House; Shaklovity in Khovanshchina at Dutch National Opera; Phillipe II in Don Carlos under Renato Palumbo at the Hamburg State Opera, in a Peter Konwitschny production; and numerous performances in the title role of Bluebeard’s Castle with The Berlin Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, Oregon Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic under Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Adam Fischer, Ed Gardner, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Harding, Michele Mariotti and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Gábor Bretz has also worked with other eminent conductors including Alain Altinoglu, Philippe Jordan, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Juraj Valčuha and Omer Meir Wellber.
Gábor Bretz sings regularly in concert; his repertoire includes the major oratories of Bach, Haydn, and Mozart; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9; Tippett’s A Child of our Time; Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ; Verdi’s Requiem; Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Handel’s Messiah under Sylvain Cambreling, Carlo Montanaro and Helmuth Rilling.
During the 2017-18 season, Gábor Bretz came to the Barbican, London to sing the role of Brander in The Damnation of Faust with the London Symphony Orchestra, followed by Bluebeard’s Castle with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Teatro di San Carlo di Napoli; Scarpia in Tosca at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna; a staged Verdi Requiem at the Hamburg State Opera; King Heinrich in Lohengrin at La Monnaie, Brussels; Fasolt as part of Odense Symphony Orchestra’s complete Ring Cycle, and Jochanaan in Salome at the Salzburg Festival. Gábor Bretz’s appearances with the Hungarian State Opera included Marcel in Les Huguenots, Zaccaria in Nabucco, and Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra. He also sang Landgraf in Tannhauser for the Palace of Arts, Budapest.
The 2018-19 season will see Bretz performing the role of Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte at La Monnaie, followed by Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Opera House and a reprise of his role in the staged Verdi Requiem at the Hamburg State Opera later in the season. Bretz will appear in the roles of Escamillo in Carmen and Filippo II in Don Carlos at the Hamburg State Opera, and Gurnemanz in Parsifal with the Hallé Orchestra. He will perform the title roles in both Don Quichotte at the Bregenzer Festspiele and in Bluebeard’s Castle at Teatro Massimo, Palermo, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. Bretz will also sing Bartók’s Cantata Profana and Kodály’s Psalmus Hungaricus with the Orchestre de Paris.
Kristóf Baráti
One of the most important artists of his generation in Hungary, Kristóf Baráti performs regularly in his native country with all the major Hungarian orchestras, in recital and chamber music, and in 2014 he was awarded Hungary’s highest cultural award, the Kossuth Prize, following in the footsteps of András Schiff, György Ligeti and Iván Fischer amongst others.
Across the rest of the world Baráti is gaining recognition for the extraordinary quality of his musicianship. He enjoys a particularly close relationship with Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra: earlier this year Gergiev invited him to appear as soloist in Russia alongside Kavakos, Trifonov and others in the Prokofiev celebrations and he has since returned for performances of the Stravinsky and Beethoven Concerti. In September he is Gergiev’s violin soloist in the Prokofiev concerti in London, again as part of the Prokofiev 125th birthday celebrations, then touring with the orchestra and Gergiev to Shanghai in October.
Elsewhere Baráti has played with many major orchestras including the Budapest Festival, Royal Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, NHK Symphony, WDR Symphony orchestras and with conductors such as Gergiev, Masur, Janowski, Dutoit, Bělohlávek, Saraste, Pletnev, Varga, Iván Fischer, Hrůša, Manze and Temirkanov. Earlier in 2016 he returned to NDR Hannover with Andrew Manze, and made his debut at London’s Southbank Centre with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Orosco-Estrada, and he looks forward to performing with the London Philharmonic again in September on tour in Hungary with Vladimir Jurowski. Elsewhere he looks forward to returning to the NHK Symphony in Tokyo and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra.
A regular recital and chamber music player, Baráti performs all over the globe with partners such as Richard Goode, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Mischa Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Zoltán Kocsis and Kim Kashkashian. Recent highlights include performances in Paris, Washington, Chicago and New York. In July he made a sensational debut at the Verbier Festival performing the complete solo Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, with Medici filming the Sonatas.
Baráti’s discography includes the complete Bach solo Sonatas and Partitas, Ysaÿe solo sonatas, the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas with Klára Würtz, as well concerti by Mozart, Korngold and Paganini, and upcoming releases include sonatas by Ravel, Fauré and Franck. Reviewing his latest release of encores titled “The Lady of Harmsworth”, Gramophone magazine said “for those who like to hear the violin played at its sweet and acrobatic best, then Barati is out of the top drawer”.
Born into a family of musicians, Baráti spent much of his childhood in Venezuela, where he played as soloist with many of the country’s leading orchestras, returning to Budapest to study at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. He was later mentored by Eduard Wulfson who was himself a student of Milstein and Menuhin. Baráti has won many major prizes including the third prize and audience prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1997 when he was the competition’s youngest competitor. When he is not playing the violin he is a keen photographer and an avid chess player, proud to have almost drawn in a match against Vladimir Kramnik, World Chess Champion 2000-2007. Passionate about flying, Barati is also a keen aeroplane pilot and one day he hopes to own his own plane.
Baráti plays the 1703 “Lady Harmsworth” made by Antonio Stradivarius, kindly offered by the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.
Miklós Perényi
is recognized as one of the great cellists of his generation, with a distinctive, subtly nuanced sound matched by extraordinary musicality.
Born in Hungary, he began cello lessons at the age of five with Miklós Zsámboki, a student of David Popper. At the age of nine, he gave his first concert in Budapest and went on to study between 1960 and 1964 with Enrico Mainardi in Rome and, in Budapest, with Ede Banda. In 1963 he became a prizewinner at the International Pablo Casals Cello Competition in Budapest. Casals invited him to his master classes in Puerto Rico in 1965 and 1966, and he went on to become a frequent visitor to the Marlboro Festival.
In 1974, Miklós Perényi joined the faculty at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, where he has held a professorship since 1980. He was honoured with the Kossuth-Prize in 1980 and the Bartók-Pásztory-Prize in 1987.
Perényi has appeared in the world’s major musical centres, performing regularly around Europe, in Japan and China and in North and South America. His festival engagements have included Edinburgh, Lucerne, Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, Hohenems, Warsaw, Berlin, Kronberg, and the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades in France. With a repertoire ranging from the 17th century to the present, he appears as a soloist with orchestra, in solo and duo recitals and in chamber ensembles. Beyond performing and teaching, he also devotes his energies to composition of works for solo cello and for instrumental ensembles of various sizes.
Among his closest colleagues is the pianist András Schiff, with whom he has appeared at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Edinburgh Festival and the Ruhr Festival. Recently, the duo played at Cologne’s Philharmonie, the Schwetzingen Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall and the 92nd Street in New York.
Highlights of the 2012/2013 season include orchestra and chamber concerts in Japan, England, France, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic. In Spring 2013, Perenyi appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle in performances of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto in Berlin, Essen and Paris. A highlight of the 2013/14 season is going to be his tour with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Andras Schiff.
Miklós Perényi’s numerous recordings include releases for Hungaroton, EMI-Quint, Sony Classical, Decca, col legno, Teldec, Erato and Wigmore Hall’s own label. Perenyi’s ECM release of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano, with Andras Schiff, won the Cannes Classical Award 2005; his latest recording with ECM, of solo works by Britten, Bach and Ligeti, was released in early 2012 to critical acclaim. Miklos Perenyi’s upcoming CD, featuring the Schubert Quintet with the Kuss Quartet, will be released in September 2013 under the Onyx Classics label.
