“ultra-impassioned, vividly detailed”- Gramophone "revelatory, stunning" - Fanfare
Elmira Darvarova Ronald Carbone Samuel Magill Linda Hall
Photo by Yui Kitamura
Grammy®-nominated recording artist, a concert violinist since the age of 4, and an award-winning performer (GOLD MEDAL at the Global Music Awards in 2017 and 2018), Elmira Darvarova caused a sensation, becoming the first ever (and so far only) female concertmaster in the entire history of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. With the MET Orchestra she toured Europe, Japan and the United States, and was heard on the MET's live weekly international radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, CDs and laser discs on the Sony, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI labels. As concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera she has performed with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. She studied with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School in London (as a British Council scholar), with Josef Gingold at Indiana University in Bloomington (as one of his assistants), and, privately, with Henryk Szeryng. She is a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music, where currently a scholarship bearing Elmira Darvarova’s name is being awarded annually.
An award-winning artist (Gold Medal at the 2017 & 2018 Global Music Awards, Gold Quill Award by Classic FM Radio, and the Boris Christoff Medal), Elmira Darvarova can be heard on numerous CDs, recorded for several labels (recent releases include the world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke's violin concerto with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and a CD with world-premiere recordings of chamber music by René de Castéra, named by the prestigious British publication MusicWeb International a RECORD OF THE YEAR 2015). Elmira Darvarova’s albums have entered the BILLBOARD Charts, most recently at the No. 3 position (August 2021). Several of her albums have been selected as Record of the Month by MusicWeb-International. Her CDs have won critical acclaim in such esteemed publications as The Strad Magazine, Gramophone Magazine, Fanfare, American Records Guide, BBC Music Magazine, Klassic heute, Ritmo. She has appeared in recitals and as soloist on five continents, and has performed concertos with the Moscow State Symphony, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, and with numerous orchestras on three continents. She has performed on the world’s most prestigious stages, such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fischer/ David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Symphony Space in New York; Symphony Hall in Chicago; Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco; Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto; Suntory Hall, Bunka Kaikan and NHK Hall in Tokyo; Musikverein in Vienna; Cadogan Hall in London; Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford; Koncerthuset in Stockholm; Victoria Hall in Geneva; Smetana Hall in Prague; Megaron in Athens; Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona; Alte Oper in Frankfurt; Kölner Philharmonie; Mumbai's National Center for Performing Arts; Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall; Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, among many others. She has given recitals and master classes at many festivals and at many music schools worldwide. Well-versed not only in opera, symphonic and chamber music repertoire, she also performs and records in many other genres and styles, including tango, jazz, blues, folk, world music, contemporary/ electronic music, Stroh violin, and Indian Ragas. She has partnered for chamber music performances with James Levine, Janos Starker, Gary Karr, Pascal Rogé, Vassily Lobanov, with tango and jazz legends such as Octavio Brunetti, Fernando Otero and David Amram, and with the world-renowned Indian classical musician - the superstar of the Sarod - Amjad Ali Khan, with whom she recorded a trilogy of CD albums, based on traditional Indian Ragas (released in the United States, and separately, on the Indian sub-continent). Her recently released CD album "Masterpieces for Sarod & Violin" entered the BILLBOARD Classical Charts at No. 3 in August 2021. She has recorded 2 CDs of Baroque music (world-premiere recordings) with the world's most renowned double bassist Gary Karr, and she has performed with him Bottesini's Gran Duo Concertante in the United States and Canada. She has recorded 4 CDs of music by Astor Piazzolla, two of them with the late Argentine-born tango pianist and arranger Octavio Brunetti (named by the New York Philharmonic "the inheritor of Piazzolla's mantle"), and she has performed in a duo with Octavio Brunetti at festivals in the US and Europe. For the Naxos label she has recorded 2 CD albums of chamber music by Franco Alfano (world-premiere recordings), and she can be also heard on world-premiere recordings of chamber music by René de Castéra and Émile Goue on 2 albums recorded by the French label Azur Classical. For the German label Solo Musica she has recorded 2 albums: the complete Brahms Sonatas, together with pianist Zhen Chen, and masterpieces by Brahms, Franck, Clara Schumann and Vassily Lobanov with the world-renowned Russian pianist Vassily Lobanov (a former piano duo partner of the legendary Sviatoslav Richter), including the world-premiere recording of Lobanov’s Violin Sonata. For the Affetto label and the Urlicht AudioVisual label she has recorded numerous albums, including the critically acclaimed world-premiere recording of the violin concerto by Vernon Duke (with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony), a highly-praised recording of the iconic Brahms Horn Trio with the former principal horn of The New York Philharmonic Philip Myers, the violin sonata of Amanda Maier (with renowned pianist Bryan Wagorn), a Poulenc disc with the distinguished French pianist Pascal Rogé, and the solo violin album "Violin Declamations from the Twilight of the Workers' Paradise". In 2020 Affetto/Naxos released 4 of her albums: “Music from Five Centuries”, “Astor Piazzolla - Genius of Tango”, “Music by Women”, and "American Music for Violin & Horn". In 2021 she had several album releases, including “Can You Hear the Flowers” with Argentine-born Grammy®-winning pianist and composer Fernando Otero, and "Masterpieces by Brahms, Franck, Clara Schumann and Vassily Lobanov" with the world-renowned Russian pianist Vassily Lobanov (a former piano-duo partner of Sviatoslav Richter). Other 2021 CD album releases include "Homage to Eugéne Ysaÿe", "Horn Trios by Brahms, Kahn, Koechlin and Dubois", and a disc with chamber works by José Serebrier, whose new composition “Nostalgia” (2020) was transcribed and interpreted for solo violin by Elmira Darvarova at the composer’s request. More CD albums are scheduled for 2022 and 2023, including her long-anticipated triple-CD album “From Bach to Blues”, one more Eugene Ysaÿe volume, and a disc with solo violin suites by Stephen Brown. Many composers have dedicated works to Elmira Darvarova. She has recorded live for Radio Innsbruck in Austria, as well as for Radio Suisse Romande in Switzerland. Her recital at Bela Bartok's memorial house in Budapest was broadcast live throughout Europe. A documentary film about her life and career was shown on European television. She performs in a duo with Grammy®-winner, pianist/ composer Fernando Otero, and is a founding member of The New York Piano Quartet, the Delphinium Trio, the Quinteto del Fuego and the Amram Ensemble. She is Jury President of several international chamber music competitions in Europe, and she is the President and Artistic Director of the New York Chamber Music Festival. Hailed as "a marvelous violinist in the Heifetz tradition" by American Record Guide, praised by Gramophone Magazine for her "ultra-impassioned performances", and in The STRAD for her “intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing" and "silky-smooth voluptuous tone”, she was featured in Gramophone Magazine with an interview about her world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke's violin concerto (written for Heifetz in 1940), which she recorded recently with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Violist Ronald Carbone has had a diverse musical life encompassing chamber music, orchestral and solo performances, as well as recording. He has been Principal Violist of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra and an Associate Member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and, presently, Mr. Carbone is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He is the founder and music director of the Canaan Chamber Music Festival. He performs with the New York Piano Quartet and the Omni Piano Quartet, and is a frequent guest violist with the renowned concert series Spectrum Concerts in Berlin, Germany. Ronald Carbone has been a member of the Composer’s String Quartet, the Portsmouth Chamber Ensemble, the Lexington Trio and the Griffes String Quartet. Mr. Carbone has been on the faculties of Vassar College and Smith College. His recordings have been released on many record labels including Naxos, CRI, Albany, Reference-Records, Affetto, Azur Classical and Urlicht Audiovisual. The recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant for Music Award, he has been awarded two Artists International Awards. He was a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, has performed extensively with The New York Philharmonic and was Assistant Principal Violist of the Barcelona City Orchestra. A student of Boston Symphony’s concertmaster Richard Burgin and the eminent violin soloist Ruth Posselt, Mr. Carbone received his master’s degree from Yale School of Music. Involved in a multitude of performing and recording projects, Ronald Carbone has participated in numerous important premiere performances, including the New York premiere of Eugène Ysaÿe’s String Trio No. 1, Op. 33, a.k.a. “Le Chimay”, the American premiere of the “Rhapsodie” by Joseph Marx, and the New York premiere of Charles-Marie Widor’s Piano Quartet Op. 66 (a performance hailed as “revelatory, stunning” by Fanfare Magazine). Ronald Carbone has recorded several works for solo viola by contemporary composers, including the world premiere recordings of viola pieces by David Amram, José Serebrier, Garth Knox.
Cellist Samuel Magill has been called “…a world-class artist…” by Fanfare Magazine in 2018. Of his Centaur release of Andrew Rudin’s Cello Sonata, Fanfare wrote “Throughout, Magill’s beautiful cello tone is in evidence, endlessly expressive, subtle in shading…He is a first-rate artist and instrumentalist.” His first Naxos CD of Vernon Duke’s Cello Concerto was hailed as “flat-out magnificent” by the American Record Guide.In 2014 The Strad Magazine raved about Magill’s “sumptuous tone” in his 2014 recital at New York’s Bargemusic series, in which he and Beth Levin played the rarely heard Czerny arrangement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Violin Sonata. This led to their 2016 Navona CD which includes the Kreutzer, the Solo Cello Sonata by Artur Schnabel, and the Ballade by Emanuel Moór. Writing in Classics Today, Jed Distler said “…Magill’s superb technique, range of color, and intelligent pacing make a compelling case (for the Schnabel)”. Mr Magill has appeared as soloist throughout Japan and the U.S., including performances of both the Schumann Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto in Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall, and the Brahms and the Haydn D Major Concerto in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. He has partnered with the pianists Oxana Yablonskaya, Pascal Rogé, and the late Grant Johannesen, and presented annual recitals from 1994 until 2019 at Lincoln Center’s New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He is a co-founder, with flutist Lucian Rinando and harpist Mélanie Genin, of the flute, cello, and harp trio Sono Auros. They made their New York debut a Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall to critical acclaim. Strings Magazine declared them “masters of their instruments.” Magill is also a founding member of the New York Piano Quartet. A pupil of the late Zara Nelsova, Mr. Magill also studied with Laurence Lesser at the Peabody Institute and with Shirley Trepel at Rice University. He is the former Associate Principal Cello with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, former member of the Houston Symphony, and a former member of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Mr. Magill is originally from Chapel Hill, NC and attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts for high school and was a student of the late Irving Klein, who was a pupil of Emanuel Feuermann. Sam now lives in Greensboro, NC, and serves on the faculty of St. Mary’s Music Academy in High Point and the Community Music School of UNCSA in Winston-Salem.
A long-time Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Linda Hall prepares some of the most challenging operatic masterpieces (including works of Schoenberg, Berg, Strauss, Britten and world-premieres of operas by Corigliano, Harbison, Bolcom, and Picker) and she also performs as part of the MET Orchestra, and has appeared regularly with the MET Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. In addition to her work with the MET, she collaborates with many singers and instrumentalists in concerts throughout the United States, in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. At age 5 she performed Chopin on the radio, and at 13 was soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Having received degrees from Oberlin, Juilliard and the Salzburg Mozarteum, Linda Hall has taught in Israel, Mexico, Japan and China. She has also been performing and recording with the New York Piano Quartet. Her recordings include discs on the Neuma label with flutist Patricia Spencer, an album with MET Orchestra principal cellist Jascha Silberstein for the Heritage label, a CD on the Capriccio label, and recent recordings for the French label Azur Classical, and with the New York Piano Quartet for Urlicht AudioVisual.
Comprised of Metropolitan Opera musicians (violinist Elmira Darvarova, violist Ronald Carbone, cellist Samuel Magill and pianist Linda Hall), The NEW YORK PIANO QUARTET is the core ensemble of the New York Chamber Music Festival. Its performances have been called “revelatory” and “stunning” by Fanfare Magazine, while its recent recordings for the Urlicht AudioVisual label were praised as “ultra-impassioned, vividly detailed” by Gramophone Magazine. In 2015 a CD album with world-premiere recordings of chamber works by René de Castéra (released by the French label Azur Classical), on which three of the New York Piano Quartet members appear, was selected by Music-web International as Recording of the Month (April 2015) and among the Records of the Year 2015.
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