Ditta Rohmann, Melinda Felletár, Budapest Symphony Orchestra MAV & Valéria Csányi
Biography Ditta Rohmann, Melinda Felletár, Budapest Symphony Orchestra MAV & Valéria Csányi
Ditta Rohmann
is known for her enormous versatility as a musician. She appears as a soloist in various concert halls, improvises with world-music ensembles, and plays a major role in collaborations with dancers, both as a chamber musician and most recently as an actress.
Born in Budapest in 1983 into a family of musicians (her father is pianist Imre Rohmann), she started her musical education at the age of seven.
She studied at the New England Conservatory of Boston between 1993 and 1994 with Suren Bagratuni, and then at the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest from 1995 to 2005, the last six years as a student of Miklos Perenyi.
Her master studies were with Ivan Monighetti at the Academy of Music in Basel, while completing an internship at the Zurich Opera House.
Of huge importance to her was her participation in masterclasses with Boris Pergamenschikow, Jean-Guihen Queyras, András Schiff, György Kurtag, Steven Isserlis and others. In common with many of today’s greatest soloists, Ditta regards the Hungarian pianist and teacher Ferenc Rados as a reference and ‘master’.
More recently Ditta completed a doctorate at the Franz Liszt Academy, entitled ‘Sacher-Theme’, on the 12 works commissioned by Rostropovich in honour of Paul Sacher’s 70th birthday. Indeed, twentieth century and contemporary music form an important part of her repertoire, and she works regularly with the Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös.
In 2012 Ditta Rohmann was a prize winner at the prestigious Leipzig Bach Competition. Her recording of the 6 Bach Cello Suites on Hungaroton has been acclaimed by the public and critics alike, with the authoritative magazine ‘Gramophone’ ending its review of the second disc “..file Rohmann’s two volumes … on the shelf under ‘definitive’.” In January 2018 her third Bach disc ‘Sonatas and Partitas’ was released, on which she uses the violoncello piccolo to play the E major violin partita. It also features two of the violin and clavier sonatas with her husband Lászlo Fassang on baroque organ, and the A minor flute partita.
Ditta performs regularly as a soloist with orchestra. Whilst contemporary compositions and the concertos of C.P.E.Bach take particular prominence, chamber music also holds a special place in her musical life. She regularly attends the September ‘Open Chamber Music’ festival of the International Musicians Seminar, Prussia Cove, UK, where she has played alongside such artists as Steven Isserlis, Frans Helmerson, Andras Schiff and Thomas Adès. She has also appeared in the Kronberg, Lucerne and Santander festivals, and Music at Marsac, etc. Ditta’s CD of cello and piano works by Bartók, Debussy, De Falla and Ravel with her father Imre Rohmann was awarded one of just six Gramofon awards for the best Hungarian classical recordings of 2017.
She is also a committed teacher, having held a post for several years at the University of Debrecen. She runs her own summer school, also in Hungary, and gives regular masterclasses.
From September 2018 on, Ditta will join the faculty of the Academy of Music Franz Liszt in Budapest as assistant professor.
Always in search of more direct forms of expression, Ditta takes on projects well outside the framework of the conventional concert, from improvisations (often singing as well as playing) or performing in ‘world music’ groups, to dance performances in which she plays on stage. She even took a role in a play in which she also played the cello. Nevertheless, recitals of solo Bach remain among her most treasured performances.
Since 2008 Ditta has played on a 1770 cello by Jean-Baptiste Salomon (Paris) and more recently on a five string violoncello piccolo, acquired for the sixth Bach suite but with which she is now exploring the violin repertoire.
Melinda Felletár
was born in Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary. She began studies at the Szeged Conservatory under the direction of Richard Weninger (harp) and Lajos Huszár (composition). She later entered the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, where she studied with Vera Dulova.
After returning to Hungary, Felletár worked with the Szeged Symphony Orchestra and the National Theatre of Szeged, performing the vast majority of harp repertoire, from concertos by Mozart, Glière, Ginastera, Boieldieu, Damase and Martin to chamber and solo works. Felletár has been a professor at the Szeged Conservatory since 1991.
Her first solo album was released in 1996, and in 1998 she recorded Weiner’s Romance with János Starker. In the same year she also joined the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, and during the 2003–04 season appeared in three live broadcasts on Hungarian Radio, performing six Hungarian harp concertos, four of which were later featured on an album released on Hungaroton.
Felletár graduated with a Doctor of Liberal Arts degree from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest in 2011. She currently holds the position of solo harpist of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV.
Valéria Csányi
The Hungarian conductor Valéria Csányi (b. 1958, Budapest) studied at the Liszt Academy of Music, obtaining a music teacher’s and choral conductor’s diploma in 1982 and a conductor’s diploma in 1984. She has attended masterclasses given by Karl Österreicher in Vienna, Péter Eötvös in Szombathely and Milan Horvat in Salzburg, and since 1983, has been a member of the Hungarian State Opera, initially as a répétiteur.
She was given the opportunity to conduct opera in 1988, leading several works, including premieres, and between 1995 and 2009 she took part in all of the ballet productions of the State Opera. She has worked extensively at the Hungarian State Opera, conducting more than 700 performances. She has toured Austria, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Mexico.
Csányi has made recordings for Naxos including the operetta Fürstin Ninetta by Johann Strauss II with the Stockholm Strauss-Orkester [8.660227-28] as well as the first complete recording of Ferenc Erkel’s opera István király (‘King Stephen’) [8.660345-46], Leó Weiner’s ballet Csongor and Tünde [8.573491] and Imre Széchényi’s Complete Dances for Orchestra [8.573807].
