FESTIVAL GALA CONCERT
Sunday, July 30th 2023
Nikolai Lugansky (piano)
Highly acclaimed by the press, Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist of extraordinary depth and versatility. He regularly works with top level conductors such as Osmo Vänskä, Yuri Temirkanov, Mikhail Pletnev and Gianandrea Noseda. Concerto highlights for the 2018/19 season include performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Russian National Orchestra, Orquesta Nacional de España, Iceland and Bamberg symphonies. A tour with Orchestre National de France takes him to China and then onto Taipei and Japan with St Petersburg Philharmonic. A regular recitalist the world over, upcoming performances include the International Piano Series in London, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and a residency at Flagey in Brussels. His chamber music collaborators include Vadim Repin, Alexander Kniazev, Mischa Maisky and Leonidas Kavakos. He has made a number of award-winning recordings and will release a new solo disc of Debussy for harmonia mundi later this year. Nikolai Lugansky studied at Moscow's Central Music School and the Moscow Conservatoire where his teachers included Tatiana Kestner, Tatiana Nikolayeva and Sergei Dorensky. He was awarded the honour of People's Artist of Russia in April 2013.
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Mischa Maisky (cello)
Born and trained in Russia, Mischa MAISKY emigrated to Israel. He was then enthusiastically welcomed in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York and Tokyo. He is the only cellist to have studied with the instrument's two great masters, Mstislav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky. "One of the most remarkable of the young generation of cellists. His playing combines poetry and refined sensitivity, great temperament and brilliant technique" (Rostropovitch). A keen chamber musician, Mischa Maisky plays with Radu Lupu, Yuri Bashmet, Maxim Vengerov, Nelson Freire, Gidon Kremer, with whom he recorded Brahms' Double with the Vienna Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein (DGG/with video), and particularly with Martha Argerich. He also collaborates with Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Myung-Whun Chung, Zubin Mehta, Giuseppe Sinopoli... His extensive discography includes: With Martha Argerich, Debussy/Franck (EMI), and Schubert/Schumann (Philips). For DGG, where he is the exclusive artist: Bach Suites, which won three Record Academy Prizes in Tokyo and the Grand Prix du Disque in Paris, and with which he toured the world in 2002; Bach and Beethoven Sonatas (Diapason d'Or and Grammy nominee) with Martha Argerich; Schumann Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and Bernstein; three Haydn Concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Dvorak and Bloch with the Israel Philharmonic and Bernstein, Elgar's Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Sinopoli (Academy Award in Tokyo), the "Meditation", "Adagio" and "Cellissimo" discs, anthologies of miniature works, Shostakovich's Concertos with the London Symphony and Michael Tilson-Thomas, Vivaldi and Boccherini Concertos with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Prokofiev and Miaskovsky Concertos with the Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev, and Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich Trios with Martha Argerich and Gidon Kremer. Recent releases include a DGG disc of transcriptions of Russian Romances, Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 1 and Schumann's Fantaisiestücke with Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer and Yuri Bashmet, Dvorak's Cello Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Zubin Mehta, and Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Martha Argerich and Renaud Capuçon for EMI. Mischa Maisky plays an 18th-century Montagnana, donated by a patron of the arts.