Barnabás Kelemen, Hungary – Gold Medalist
An artist of “innate musicality” with a technical execution that belongs “only to the greatest” (The Guardian), Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen has captured the attention of the music world. With a repertoire that ranges from classical to contemporary music, Kelemen gave the Hungarian premieres of the Ligeti and Schnittke Violin Concertos as well as the Hungarian premiere and world premiere of violin works by Gubaidulina and Kurtág. Barnabás Kelemen collaborates amongst others with the American Symphony, BBC Symphony, Budapest Festival, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken, Helsinki Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Irish Chamber, Kioi Sinfonietta, Lahti Symphony, London Philharmonic, Malaysian Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Netherlands Radio, Norwegian Chamber, Philharmonia Auckland, Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony orchestras. Barnabás Kelemen works with renowned conductors such as Olari Elts, Iván Fischer, Sascha Goetzel, Pietari Inkinen, Vladimir Jurowski, Tonu Kajuste, Zoltán Kocsis, Hannu Lintu, Michael Sanderling, Leif Segerstam, Dmitri Slobodeniouk, Masaaki Suzuki, Gábor Takács-Nagy and Krzysztof Urbánski. In play and lead engagements he appeared with the Budapest Festival Chamber Orchestra, Het Kamerorkest Brugge, Indianapolis Symphony, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra. In recital Kelemen has performed with Zoltán Kocsis and Shai Wosner with whom he played recitals at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Bozar in Brussels and Carnegie Hall in New York. In 2010 he founded the Kelemen Quartet, which received a silver medal, audience prize and the Musica Viva Grand Prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 2011. In 2014 the Kelemen Quartet was awarded with the first prize at the Premio Paolo Borciani in Reggio Emilia. Highlights in the 2014/15 season included appearances as a soloist with the Iceland Symphony and Eivind Aadland, Norwegian Chamber (play and lead), Estonian National Symphony and Olari Elts, Helsingborg Symphony and Stefan Solyom, Helsinki Philharmonic and Pieatri Inkinen, Tapiola Sinfonietta and Ryan Wigglesworth, Münchner Symphoniker and Kevin John Edusei, Pannon Philharmonic and Tibor Bogányi, Het Kamerorkest (play and lead), Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen and Ola Rudner, and Athens State Symphony Orchestra and Stefanos Tsialis. He also appeared in recital with Olli Mustonen in Ljubljana and at the Wigmore Hall in London and in chamber music performances with Alexander Longquich and Nicolas Altstaedt. The Kelemen Quartet will give its debuts at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Bozar in Brussels, in Geneva, at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, in Milan, Turin, Venice, at the Musikverein in Vienna and at the Festival Settimane Musicali di Ascona. Barnabás Kelemen’s varied discography has been received to critical acclaim, with his recording of Brahms’ Sonatas for Violin and Piano with Tamás Vásáry having won a Diapason d’Or, and that of Liszt’s complete works for Violin and Piano with Gergely Bogányi awarded the Grand Prix du Disque 2001 by the International Liszt Society. His recording of Bartók’s Rhapsodies and Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Hungarian National Philharmonic and Zoltán Kocsis released by the Label Hungaroton won the German Record Critics’ Award 2011 in the concerto category. Among his more recent recordings are also a live DVD of the complete Mozart Violin Concertos and CDs of Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Hungarian National Philharmonic and Zoltán Kocsis. A recital CD released by the Label Hungaroton with both Bartók Violin Sonatas with Zoltán Kocsis and Bartók’s Solo Sonata, received a Gramophone Award in the Chamber Music category 2013. Born in Budapest in 1978, Barnabás Kelemen entered the Franz Liszt Music Academy at the age of eleven and later went on to become Third Prize Winner of the 2001 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and was the Gold Medalist at the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis in 2002. In recognition of his achievements the Hungarian government awarded him the Sándor Végh Prize in 2001, the Franz Liszt Prize in 2003, Rózsavölgyi Prize in 2003 and most recently the Kossuth Prize in 2012. Since 2005 he has been a professor at the Franz Liszt Music Academy Budapest and since 2014 a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne. He has also been a guest artist at Indiana University Bloomington. He performs on a Guarneri del Gesú violin of 1742 (ex-Dénes Kovács), generously loaned by the State of Hungary.
Sergey Khachatryan, Armenia – Silver Medalist
Born in Yerevan, Armenia, Sergey Khachatryan won First Prize in the VIII International Jean Sibelius competition in Helsinki in 2000, becoming the youngest ever winner in the history of the competition. In 2005 he claimed the First Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.
Sergey has performed with orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, NHK Symphony in Tokyo, Munich Philharmonic and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich.
Following his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in 2004, Sergey has subsequently appeared with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur, the Boston Symphony and Bernard Haitink, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and StéphaneDenève, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Charles Dutoit, and the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas. In August 2005 Sergey performed at the Ravinia and Blossom Festivals and in 2006 made his debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival performing the Beethoven concerto with OsmoVänskä.
Sergey has performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi, EsaPekkaSalonen, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Alexander Lazarev and TuganSokhiev. With the London Philharmonic Orchestra Sergey performed the Bach Double Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter, the Sibelius concerto with JukkaPekkaSaraste and the Khachaturian concerto on a major North American tour in March 2006. In January 2011 he made his London debut with the London Symphony Orchestra performing Shostakovich’s second concerto conducted by Valery Gergiev.
Since December 2002 Sergey has performed regularly with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, including a Proms debut in 2005 conducted by VassilySinaisky and regular concerts subsequently with GianandreaNoseda.
Sergey works regularly with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra in St Petersburg and at the Mikkeli Festival in Finland. His 2010-11 season included debut performances with the Dresden Staatskapelle, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Rotterdam Philharmonic as well as the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. Other highlights included the Munich Philharmonic with Thomas Hengelbrock, Orchestre National de Belgique with James Gaffigan, Swedish Radio Symphony with Susanna Mälkki, and the Berg concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with Kirill Karabits.
Sergey’s 2011-12 season includes concerts with the Bamberg Symphoniker and Herbert Blomstedt, RundfunkSymphonieorchester Berlin with JurajValcuha, Orchestre de Paris with Andris Nelsons, his debut in China with the National Centre of Performing Arts Orchestra for New Year’s concerts conducted by LorinMaazel and the world premiere of a new concerto by Arthur Aharonian with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta.
With his sister LusineKhachatryan Sergey has performed recitals at the Wigmore Hall, AlteOper Frankfurt, the National Auditorium in Madrid, Carnegie Hall, Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 2011-12 they will perform recitals in the series of Chicago University Presents, Detroit Chamber Music Society, Cite de la Musique in Paris, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Luxembourg Philharmonie, Alice Tully Hall in New York and Herbst Theater in San Francisco.
His recording of the Sibelius concerto was released by Naïve Classique in October 2003, followed by a double Shostakovich concerto disc with the Orchestre National de France conducted by Kurt Masur, a recording of the Shostakovich and Cesar Franck sonatas for violin and piano in February 2008 and most recently the complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin by J.S. Bach.
Sergey plays the 1740 ‘Ysaye’ Guarneri violin on kind loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Soovin Kim, United States – Bronze Medalist
Korean-American violinist Soovin Kim is an exciting player who has built on the early successes of his prize-winning years to emerge as a mature and communicative artist. After winning first prize at the Niccolò Paganini International Competition, Mr. Kim was recipient of the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Henryk Szeryng Foundation Career Award. Today he enjoys a broad musical career, regularly performing repertoire such as Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano by Beethoven, Brahms, and Ives, string quartets, Mozart and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season.
In recent seasons he has been acclaimed for his “superb…impassioned” (Berkshire Review) performance of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto at the Bard Festival with the American Symphony Orchestra and a “sassy, throaty” (Philadelphia Inquirer) rendition of Kurt Weill’s concerto with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra. Other unusual concerto collaborations included Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto with conductor Maestro Myung-Whun Chung, the same Mendelssohn concerto with the Dallas Symphony and music director Jaap van Zweden, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Carnegie Hall. He has performed in past seasons with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, and the Seoul Philharmonic and Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra with Maestro Chung.
For 20 years Soovin Kim was the 1st violinist of the Johannes String Quartet. Among their special projects was a two-season tour with the famed and now-retired Guarneri String Quartet in an unusual program including world-premieres of works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Derek Bermel, and William Bolcom. Mr. Kim maintains a close relationship with the famed Marlboro Festival where he regularly spends his summers. He is well-known in Korea as a member of MIK, his ground-breaking piano quartet ensemble. He recently launched the exciting Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio with his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, and cellist Paul Watkins of the Emerson Quartet.
Soovin Kim’s latest solo CD, Gypsy, was his third solo collaboration between American label Azica Records and Korea-based Stomp/EMI. They previously released a French album of Fauré and Chausson with pianist Jeremy Denk and the Jupiter Quartet, and Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices for solo violin which was named Classic FM magazine’s Instrumental Disc of the Month (“he emerges thrillingly triumphant…a thrilling debut disc.”). He made his first solo recording with Jeremy Denk for Koch-Discover in duo works by Schubert, Bartók, and Strauss. Mr. Kim also has six commercial chamber music recordings including an acclaimed live performance from the Marlboro Festival of Beethoven’s Archduke trio with pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the late cellist David Soyer. In 2019 his recording of Bach’s monumental solo sonatas and partitas will be released.
Soovin Kim founded the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont in 2009. With its focused programming and exceptional artists the festival is “increasing its stature as one of this country’s summer chamber music meccas (Rutland Herald).” Mr. Kim and the Lake Champlain festival helped to create the ONE Strings program in Burlington which makes violin lessons part of the regular curriculum for every 3rd, 4th, and 5th grader. In May 2015 he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Vermont in recognition of his contributions to the community.
Soovin Kim dedicates much of his time to his passion for teaching. He has been on the faculties of Stony Brook University and the Peabody Institute, and now he teaches exclusively at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Mr. Kim studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music with David Cerone and Donald Weilerstein, and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Victor Danchenko and Jaime Laredo..
In 2020, he and his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, became co-artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon.
Frank Huang, United States
Frank Huang joined the New York Philharmonic as Concertmaster, The Charles E. Culpeper Chair, in September 2015. The First Prize Winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, he has established a major career as a violin virtuoso. Since performing with the Houston Symphony in a nationally broadcast concert at the age of 11 he has appeared with orchestras throughout the world including The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hannover, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, and the Genoa Orchestra. He has also performed on NPR’s Performance Today, ABC’s Good Morning America,and CNN’s American Morning with Paula Zahn. He has performed at Wigmore Hall (in London), Salle Cortot (Paris), Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), and the Herbst Theatre (San Francisco), as well as a second recital in Alice Tully Hall (New York), which featured the World Premiere of Donald Martino’s Sonata for Solo Violin. Mr. Huang’s first commercial recording — featuring fantasies by Schubert, Ernst, Schoenberg, and Waxman — was released on Naxos in 2003. He made his New York Philharmonic solo debut in June 2016 leading and performing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, as well as leading Grieg’s The Last Spring. In November 2017 he performed Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3, led by Gianandrea Noseda.
Mr. Huang has had great success in competitions since the age of 15 and received top prize awards in the Premio Paganini International Violin Competition and the Indianapolis International Violin Competition. Other honors include Gold Medal Awards in the Kingsville International Competition, Irving M. Klein International Competition, and D’Angelo International Competition.
In addition to his solo career, Mr. Huang is deeply committed to chamber music. He is a member of the New York Philharmonic String Quartet, established in the 2016–17 season, and has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and Caramoor. He frequently participates in Musicians from Marlboro’s tours, and was selected by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to be a member of the prestigious CMS Two program. Before joining the Houston Symphony as concertmaster in 2010, Frank Huang held the position of first violinist of the Grammy Award–winning Ying Quartet and was a faculty member at the Eastman School of Music.
Frank Huang was born in Beijing, China. At the age of seven he moved to Houston, Texas, where he began violin lessons with his mother. He commenced study with Fredell Lack at the University of Houston and at 16 he enrolled in the pre-college program at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) where he studied with Donald Weilerstein. He continued studies with Weilerstein in college and earned his bachelor of music degree from CIM in 2002. He subsequently attended The Juilliard School in New York City, studying violin with Robert Mann. He is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West. He served on the faculties of The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the University of Houston, and currently serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School.
Susie Park, Australia
Hailed as “prodigiously talented” (Washington Post) and praised for her “freedom, mastery, and fantasy” (La Libre, Belgium), Susie Park is gaining worldwide recognition for her emotive range and dynamic stage presence. Concertizing around the world she has appeared as soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay in California, all of the major Australian orchestras including those of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Tasmania, West Australia, and Canberra, Korea’s KBS orchestra, the Lille National Orchestra under the direction of Yehudi Menuhin in France, and the Wellington Sinfonia, New Zealand. Highlights of this season include performances of Mozart’s Sinfonie Concertante with Jaime Laredo and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in Alice Tully Hall, New York, recitals in Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, a live radio recital for WGBH Boston, and appearances in venues including Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 92nd St. Y in New York, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Centre, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
Winner of numerous awards and honors, Miss Park was a Laureate in the 2002 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She garnered first prize in the senior division of the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, second prize in the junior division of the Henryk Wieniawski/Karol Lipinski Competition, first prize in the Richard Goldner Concerto Competition, the City of Sydney Reg Marsh Award for Most Outstanding String Performer, and the Ernest Llewellyn String Award. She took top honours at the national string division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Young Performer’s Award and her performance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was televised nationally, earning her the Victorian Premier’s Award.
A passionate chamber musician, Ms. Park is the newly appointed violinist of the most sought-after trio in the world, the Eroica Trio. The Grammy-nominated Eroica Trio thrills audiences with flawless technical virtuosity, irresistible enthusiasm, and sensual elegance. During the 2007-2008 season, the Eroica Trio will celebrate its 20th Anniversary Season with a cross-country bus tour to coincide with the release of the Trio’s eighth CD for EMI featuring all-American music, including a new arrangement of music from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” commissioned by the Eroica. During the 2006-2007 season, Ms. Park participated in a professional residency as a member of CMS Two of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She performed with such Society members as Wu Han, Gary Hoffman, and Ida Kavafian. She has participated in numerous tours with “Musicians from Marlboro” to critical acclaim as a result of her three consecutive summers in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival. Collaborations include performances with members of the Guarneri Quartet, Kim Kashkashian, Samuel Rhodes, and Jaime Laredo. Additional festival appearances include Music from Angelfire in New Mexico, Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, England, the Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Sommerakademie Mozarteum in Austria, and Israel’s Keshet Eilon. Ms. Park is also a founding member of ECCO, a conductor-less chamber orchestra comprised of some of the most talented young chamber musicians, soloists, and principal string players in major American orchestras. Translating this diversity of experience and virtuosity into a unified ensemble approach, ECCO combines the strength and power of an orchestral ensemble with the personal, intimate nature of chamber music.
A native of Sydney, Australia, Ms. Park first picked up the violin at age three making her solo recital debut at the age of five in a Suzuki showcase. Prior to moving to the U.S., Ms. Park studied in the preparatory division of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She has taken master classes with Yehudi Menuhin, Pinkas Zukerman, Pamela Frank, Steven Isserlis, Menachem Pressler, and with members of the Juilliard and Emerson string quartets. Ms. Park holds her Bachelor of Music degree from Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied under the tutelage of renowned violinists Jaime Laredo and Ida Kavafian. She served as Concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony in the 2001-2002 season, and as Concertmaster of the 2002 New York String Orchestra Seminar in Carnegie Hall. She continued studies with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried in the Artist Diploma program at the New England Conservatory.
Alina Pogostkina, Germany
Winner of the 2005 Sibelius Competition in Helsinki, Alina Pogostkina’s recent concert tours have seen her perform at some of the world’s most renowned festivals and concert venues. She has collaborated with conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mikhail Pletnev, Sir Roger Norrington, SakariOramo, Andris Nelsons, Paavo Järvi, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Gustavo Dudamel, Andrey Boreyko and Thomas Hengelbrock.
In the 2012/13 season AlinaPogostkina will perform with the San Francisco Symphony (under Michael Tilson Thomas), NDR Sinfonieorchester (Sakari Oramo), Dresdner Philharmoniker (Michael Sanderling), Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Mario Venzago), Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lawrence Foster) and Orchestre National de France (David Zinman). In February 2013 Pogostkina embarks on a tour with the Bamberger Symphoniker and Jonathan Nott for concerts in Germany and Spain. April 2013 sees the premiere of a new violin concerto by Walter Steffens with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Martyn Brabbins at the Radialsystem in Berlin.
Past seasons have included concerts with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel and with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy. Alina has also appeared with orchestras including the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, SWR Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Residentie Orkest, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Hallé, as well as the Mahler Chamber, BBC Scottish, Cincinnati Symphony, NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon, Finnish Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Czech Philharmonic orchestras.
An ardent chamber musician, Alina Pogostkina has worked with musicians such as Steven Isserlis, Yuri Bashmet, Gidon Kremer, Menahem Pressler, Christoph Eschenbach, Pekka Kuusisto, Maxim Rysanov, Jörg Widmann and Joshua Bell. Current chamber music activities focus on performances with pianist Havard Gimse and trio recitals with clarinettist Reto Bieri and pianist Diana Ketler.
Appearing in numerous radio and television recordings and broadcasts Pogostkina’s passion for contemporary music in particular is evident in her recording of Peteris Vasks’ complete body of works for violin, released in Spring 2012.
Pogostkina performs frequently at festivals including the Schwetzinger Festspiele, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Bergen and Aspen, Beethovenfest Bonn, Salzburger Festspiele, Edinburgh International Festival – where she appeared with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Robin Ticciati – as well as the Dresden Musikfestspiele and Lockenhaus Festivals.
Born in St. Petersburg, Alina Pogostkina moved to Germany in 1992, receiving her first violin lessons from her father. She was a student of Antje Weithaas at Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler.