Barnabas Kelemen is a
Hungarian violinist and teacher born (in Budapest) on June 12, 1978. He is known for having won the prestigious
Indianapolis Violin Competition in 2002.
His repertoire is very extensive and includes Schumann’s concerto and
Bruch’s second concerto which are seldom heard live. Kelemen also plays a great deal of
contemporary music. On May 2, 2013, he
premiered (in New York’s Carnegie Hall) a long lost concerto by Mihaly Nador,
composed in 1903 (and revised in 1941-42) but never performed. Reviewers of the performance compared Kelemen
to Heifetz. The audience applauded after
each movement of the concerto, which is not typical, especially in the case of
more modern works. Kelemen began
studying violin at age six with Valeria Baranyai. He entered the Franz Liszt Academy at age 11
and studied with Eszter Perenyi. He
graduated in 2001. He was 23 years
old. By then, he had already won first
prize in the Mozart Violin Competition in Salzburg (1999.) Three years after winning the Indianapolis
competition, he began teaching (in 2005) at the same school from which he
graduated. In 2010, he founded (with his
violinist wife Katalin Kokas) the Kelemen Quartet. (Among violinists who married other concert
violinists are Olga Kaler, Adele Anthony, Marina Markov, Ruth Posselt, and
Elizabeth Gilels.) The Kelemen Quartet
has also received top prizes at chamber music competitions. In addition, several of Kelemen’s recordings
have also received awards from music periodicals and critics. Interestingly, except for the cellist, the
Kelemen Quartet players sometimes switch places with each other – alternating
between first violin, second violin, and viola.
Kelemen has taken conducting lessons from Leif Segerstam and has already
conducted a few concerts in Europe. He
often appears in the dual role of soloist-conductor with chamber orchestras. Needless to say, Kelemen has toured the world
several times (and continues to do so) as a soloist and with the quartet. In 2014, he began teaching at the Advanced
School for Music and Dance in Cologne, Germany.
Here is a YouTube video of his playing a well-known Mozart sonata. It shows how different his temperament and
style are from a more conventional concert violinist but you be the judge. After winning the Indianapolis competition,
Kelemen played the 1683 Stradivarius (Martinelli Stradivarius) that all
Indianapolis competition winners get to use for four years. (The Martinelli was “restored” in 2014 and is
currently being played by Jinjoo Cho)
Kelemen is currently playing a Guarneri (del Gesu) constructed in 1742.
Jose Luis Garcia (Jose Luis Garcia Asensio) was
a Spanish violinist born (in Madrid) on February 25, 1944. He is best known for being the concertmaster
of the English Chamber Orchestra for about 25 years. Just as the names Ferdinand David, Raymond Gniewek, Glenn Dicterow, Norman Carol, and Richard Burgin unfailingly bring up the names of their respective orchestras (the Gewandhaus, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony, respectively), Garcia's biography is inextricably linked to the history of the ECO. He spent nearly his entire career in England. His first studies were with his father
beginning at age 6. If he studied with
anyone else in Spain, I do not know who that was. In 1960, he received first prize at the
Sarasate competition in Pamplona. He was
16 years old. Thereafter (in 1961) he traveled to
London to study with Antonio Brosa at the Royal College of Music. He appeared in
concert in a Vivaldi concerto (for four violins in B minor) at a Proms concert (in
1963) at age 19 with the BBC Symphony.
Malcolm Sargent was on the podium. Two years later, in 1965, he joined the pit orchestra of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. In 1967, he toured South America with the English Chamber Orchestra (playing Principal Second Violin.) However, by then, he had already (intermittently) played several concerts with the orchestra. In 1968, he was appointed associate concertmaster of the orchestra. He was 24 years old. In 1970, he made his second debut as a
soloist at another Proms concert. On that
occasion, he played Michael Tippett’s Fantasia Concertante (on a theme by
Corelli) with the English Chamber Orchestra, of which, as previously mentioned,
he was then Associate Concertmaster. The
composer was on the podium. By that
time, Garcia was already teaching at the Royal College of Music, where he had
begun teaching at age 22, being the youngest to ever get a teaching appointment at that school. (Garcia taught at the Royal College of Music until 1982 - a total of fifteen or sixteen years.) At age 23, he
led the string section for one of the Beatles’ most famous albums. With the English Chamber Orchestra, Garcia
would also conduct and perform as soloist.
He eventually toured almost every country in the world. Although he recorded as a soloist, he far
more frequently recorded as an orchestral leader with the ECO. His best-known solo recording is probably
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. He also recorded
Mozart’s five concertos and the Bach Double Concerto with the ECO. The recordings are easily found on the internet. It has been said that the English Chamber
Orchestra is the most recorded chamber orchestra in the world, having recorded
more than 1,500 individual works, even though multiple recordings of the same
works (the Mozart piano concertos, for instance) are probably included in that number. (Although the orchestra generates quite a bit
of revenue on its own, the orchestra also has an outstanding Patron - the
Prince of Wales.) Garcia never wavered
from his romantic interpretations of baroque works, unlike other British chamber
ensembles (the English Concert, the Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the
Age of Enlightenment, English Baroque Soloists, etc.) which embraced the period
instrument (authentic performance practice) musical movements beginning in the late
1960s. It is quite interesting that in
1983-1984 Garcia offered his services to the musical establishment in Spain to
conduct master classes free-of-charge (in Spain) but never got a call in response. Later on – between 1992 and 1999 – he taught
at the Queen Sofia School of Music in Madrid and conducted the school’s
orchestra with which he also toured extensively. Garcia studied conducting with Sergiu
Celibidache. Among the orchestras he guest
conducted (outside of England and Spain) are the National Symphony (Washington,
D.C.), the Detroit Symphony, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. He also guest conducted the Ft Worth (Texas,
USA) Chamber Orchestra many times, beginning with a concert going back to
October of 1977. His last concert with
that orchestra was probably in October of 1992.
As does another famous concertmaster in the U.S. (from the Boston
Symphony), Garcia loved golf. He was
also one of the very few musicians (and possibly the only violinist anywhere)
who owned a Rolls Royce automobile. Garcia played the (Fritz) Hirt Stradivarius from 1704, also known as the Prince (Serge) Obolensky Strad and now known as the Hirt-Garcia Strad. Among
the many other violins he played was a modern violin constructed by American
luthier Terry Borman. (Among the many players
who also play Borman violins are Pinchas Zukerman, Jaime Laredo, Pamela Frank,
and Joseph Silverstein.) The Strad is presently owned by a private collector but is on loan to American violinist Esther Yoo. If there are
any videos of Garcia's myriad solo concerts out there, they have not yet been uploaded to
YouTube. Garcia died on August 11, 2011,
at age 67. (Photo is courtesy of the English Chamber Orchestra)
