WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln & Jonathan Stockhammer
Biography WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln & Jonathan Stockhammer
Tamara Stefanovich
Yugoslav-born pianist Tamara Stefanovich, known for fascinating interpretations of a wide variety of repertoire, performs at the world’s major concert venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie, Suntory Hall, Tokyo, and London’s Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall. She has appeared at numerous international festivals such as Lucerne, La Roque d´Antheron, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Styriarte Graz, and Aldeburgh.Highlights of the current season are concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the MDR and WDR Sinfonieorchesters, and Asko | Schönberg, while recent engagements include performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra, The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and the London Sinfonietta. Stefanovich has also appeared with ensembles including the Cleveland, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber orchestras as well as the NDR Sinfonieorchester, Bamberger Symphoniker and Britten Sinfonia. In spring 2012 she toured Germany with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie with Kristjan Järvi, performing Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony to much critical acclaim.
Recent and forthcoming recital appearances include London’s Southbank Centre for the International Piano Series as part of ‘The Rest is Noise’, at Wigmore Hall with cellist Natalie Clein, and a return to Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw. Stefanovich has performed at the Salzburger Festspiele, Aldeburgh Festival, Dartington International Summer School, Toulouse’s Piano aux Jacobins series and Beethovenfest Bonn; she also continues to work in recital with baritone Matthias Goerne.
Tamara Stefanovich has collaborated with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Osmo Vänskä, Susanna Mälkki and Vladimir Jurowski, as well as leading contemporary composers including Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös and György Kurtág. She teaches at the Hochschule für Musik Köln and regularly leads educational projects at Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and has also done so at the Barbican in London, Philharmonie Köln and Luxembourg Philharmonie. Stefanovich also frequently takes part in performance projects with other types of performer, including dancers, actors, and DJs.
Recent releases include the Grammy-nominated recording of Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Pierre Boulez and the London Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon (also a MIDEM nomination and Gold Record Academy Award) and Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos with Jonathan Nott, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Camerata Salzburg for the ARTE television network. Stefanovich has also made recordings for the AVI and Harmonia Mundi labels, including a live recital of Rachmaninov and Ligeti, as well as works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Stravinsky. In spring 2014 Harmonia Mundi will release a recording of Stefanovich performing works by Thomas Larcher.
Taught by Lili Petrovic from the age of five, Tamara Stefanovich gave her first public recital at the age of seven and became the youngest student at the University of Belgrade at the age of 13. As well as music, her broad university education encompassed many other disciplines – psychology, education, sociology – and she received her Masters degree in piano at the age of 19. She also studied at the Curtis Institute with Claude Frank, and subsequently studied with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Cologne Hochschule.
Jonathan Stockhammer
In just a few years, Jonathan Stockhammer has succeeded in making a name for himself in the world of opera, the classical symphony, and contemporary music. He first studied Chinese and political science before moving on to studies in composition and conducting in his hometown of Los Angeles. During his studies, he filled in for a series of concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, after which he was asked to become chief conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s assistant. After completing his studies, Jonathan Stockhammer moved to Germany where he formed close relationships with well-known European ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, musikFabrik and Ensemble Resonanz.
Opera is central to Jonathan Stockhammer's work. The operas he has conducted, including Die Dreigroschenoper, Zemlinsky‘s Eine florentinische Tragödie, Sciarrino‘s Luci mie traditrici and Monkey: Journey to the West by Damon Albarn, identify him as a conductor who welcomes and masters the difficulties presented by complex scores and special, cross-categorical productions. He has been a regular guest at the Opéra de Lyon since first appearing there in 1998, where he has since conducted the successful French premiere of Dusapin’s Faustus, the Last Night. In 2009, he premiered Wolfgang Rihm’s Proserpina with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, and also conducted the orchestra in Rihm’s Deus Passus. In 2010, he conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in a production of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet Paris. In February 2013, he made his debut at the New York City Opera in Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face. This production, which received great acclaim by audience and press alike, was immediately invited for further performances at the Festival d’opéra de Québec in August 2013.
Jonathan Stockhammer has worked with numerous renowned orchestras such as the Oslo Philharmonic, NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared at the Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Donaueschingen Music Days and Wien Modern.
Aside from conducting classical and romantic masterpieces, and classical contemporary works, Jonathan Stockhammer enjoys delving into music that blurs the boundaries between classical, rock, pop, and hip-hop. His CD Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions with Ensemble Modern (RCA, 2003), featuring works by Frank Zappa, won an Echo Klassik Award. He also recorded a new soundtrack to Sergei Eisensteins’s 1925 film The Battleship Potemkin, composed and performed by the Pet Shop Boys. The live recording of The New Crystal Silence that he conducted with Chick Corea, Gary Burton and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra won a Grammy in 2009. His collaboration with spoken word artist Saul Williams on Said the Shotgun to the Head, featuring music composed by Thomas Kessler, has also been particularly successful. To date, he has conducted the work with the WDR Cologne, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic.
In the 2014/2015 season, he will make his debut at the Biennale in Venice. Other highlights of the season include re-invitations to perform with the Orchestre National de France, Munich Symphony, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg and with Ensemble Modern at the Donaueschingen Music Days. Jonathan Stockhammer has been Conductor in Residence of Collegium Novum Zurich since the renowned Swiss ensemble’s anniversary season in 2013/2014. Their first season together, which was enthusiastically received, will now be followed by a season with numerous world premieres and Swiss premieres as well as a spectacular work of the recent past: in vain by Georg Friedrich Haas.
