Vilde Frang (Vilde Frang Bjaerke) is a Norwegian violinist and teacher
born (in Oslo) on August 19, 1986. She
is known for having successfully made the jump from child prodigy to mature
violin superstar. That transition does
not always prove successful for artists.
In addition to being technically brilliant, her playing has been
described as being fresh, seductive, sinewy, inspired, voluptuous, and
possessed of startling emotional sincerity. A highly regarded music critic went so far as to say that he had never heard such a great violinist since the late Jascha Heifetz. Her playing is rhythmically and tonally flexible, not straight-laced,
predictable, and pedantic. She began her
violin studies at age four, on a violin built by her father, a professional
bass player. By 1993, she was a student
at the Barratt Due Institute of Music (founded in 1927) in Oslo. She was 7 years old. Her teachers there were Stephan Barratt Due,
Alf Kraggerud, and Henning Kraggerud. Frang
made her public debut at age ten with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (some
sources say Norwegian Chamber Orchestra.)
She graduated from the Barratt Due Institute in 2002. In 1999, aged 12 (or 13), she debuted with
the Oslo Philharmonic, playing Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy. Mariss Jansons was on the podium. The concert was a great success and her career
took off after that. However, from 2003
to 2009, Frang studied further with Kolja Blacher at the Advanced School for
Music and Theatre in Hamburg and with Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy
in Kronberg (about ten miles from Frankfurt, Germany.) She debuted with the London Philharmonic in
2007. Her first album was released in
2009. She records exclusively for
EMI/Warner Classics and has received numerous awards for her recordings,
including the Diapason d’Or, Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Classical BRIT, and
the ECHO Klassik Award. As far as I
know, Frang has never entered any violin competitions. In 2010, Frang received an award of 1 million
NOK (Norwegian Krone – about 175,000 U.S. dollars) from a large Norwegian
business enterprise. She also received
an award of 75,000 Swiss francs (approximately 79,000 U.S. dollars) from Credit
Suisse (international bank) in 2012. The
award included a performance with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Lucerne
Festival. She made her BBC London Proms
debut in August, 2013, playing Bruch’s first concerto. She was 26 years old. By now, Frang has played with virtually every
major orchestra in the world and been accompanied by most major
conductors. She has also played recitals
or made solo appearances in all of the world’s important venues, including
those in China, Japan, Korea, Austria, Belgium, England, France, Germany,
Holland, Switzerland, Russia, and the U.S.
Frang now teaches at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. One of her violins is one constructed in 1864
by J.B. Vuillaume, a maker not considered to have the status of a Guarneri, a
Stradivari, or even a Guadagnini. She
has also played (since the summer of 2013) the 1709 Stradivarius known as the Engleman Strad. Frang has made the following interesting
comment regarding her artistic perspectives: “I need things to worry
about. I need some resistance and
struggle. That’s part of my music
making. I think talent has a lot to do
with knowing how to be inspired. Inspiration
is really the most important thing. ” On April 1 and 2, 2015 (last week) Frang was
to have played the Korngold concerto with the Toronto Symphony (and James
Conlon) but had to cancel due to “scheduling difficulties.” What that really means is anyone’s guess
since concerts are scheduled (and contracts are signed) very far in advance
(sometimes three years in advance) in order to avoid this sort of
difficulty. Perhaps all it means is that
her concert managers are disorganized, although that is extremely unlikely. Here is a YouTube video of one of her
performances. Photo is courtesy of Marco
Borggreve, photographer of (mostly European) musicians.
Steven Staryk is a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist, writer, actor, and teacher born (in Toronto, Canada) on April 28, 1932 (Heifetz was 31 years old.) He may well be – after Ferdinand David - the most famous concertmaster in history. In fact, in England, he was called (by The Strad) the king of concertmasters. However, as are a few other concertmasters, he is also a concertizing virtuoso. He has also appeared, as has Ivry Gitlis, in feature films. (A well-known incident in his career occurred in 1951, when he was denied permission to enter the U.S. (from Canada) due to his supposed ties to Communism. He was at the same time also black listed by the Toronto Symphony. Details are available here.) He began his study of the violin at age 6 with John Moskalyk and attended the Harbord Collegiate Institute in Toronto. Later on, he studied with Eli Spivak (a student of Adolf Brodsky) and Albert Pratz at the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto.) Among his other teachers have been Mischa Mischakoff, Oscar Shumsky, and Alexander Schneider. Staryk has also been the recipient of many awards proffered by Canada to its most distinguished citizens and artists. He made his recital debut at age 14 on Canadian radio. At 17 he made his orchestral debut with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra playing Paganini’s first concerto at Massey Hall. Thereafter, while freelancing as a studio and solo musician he was also a section player in the Toronto Symphony (1950–1952) and in the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) Symphony Orchestra (1952-1956.) In 1956, Thomas Beecham invited him to lead the Royal Philharmonic (England), the youngest concertmaster in its history (age 24.) In 1960, he was the concertmaster for the CBC Symphony Orchestra’s recordings of works by Stravinsky conducted by Stravinsky. Staryk has also been concertmaster of the Concertgebouw (1960-1963), Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Symphony (1963-1967), and the Toronto Symphony (1982-1986.) (His longest tenure as concertmaster of any orchestra has been four years.) However, even as he led hundreds of orchestral concerts, he was also concertizing worldwide. An especially busy concertizing period came between 1967 and 1972. He has taught at the Amsterdam Conservatory (1960), Northwestern University (1963), American Conservatory (Chicago), University of Victoria (1973), Vancouver Academy of Music (1972), University of Western Ontario (1977), Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto, Canada - 1975), University of Toronto (1978), University of Washington (Seattle - 1987), and the University of Ottawa (1975.) In 1968, he became the youngest full professor at Oberlin College Conservatory in Ohio (USA.) Staryk has recorded over 190 works (up to the year 2003) and has compiled a 30 CD set which is available on the internet - known as the Staryk Anthology. He is easily in the top five of recorded violinists – including Ruggiero Ricci, Louis Kaufman, and Jascha Heifetz. This discography has been highly praised and his sound has been compared to Heifetz’. An unusual bonus is Staryk’s recording of seldom-heard Caprices by Rode, Dancla, Fiorillo, Kreutzer, Locatelli, and Sevcik. As a chamber music player, Staryk has played with the Oberlin String Quartet, Quartet Canada, the CBC String Quartet, and the Staryk-Perry Duo (with pianist John Perry) with which he recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas. Staryk also served as the first Canadian adjudicator for the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1982. Many works have been dedicated to him and been premiered by him. In 1987, Staryk played the part of Vivaldi in the two-hour documentary drama film about the famous violinist-composer. There are several videos of his playing on YouTube. He has owned and played many different violins - the Muntz Strad (1736), the Hochstein Strad (1715), the Wieniawski Strad (1719), the Rode Strad (1721), the Sacconi Guarnerius (1740), a Ruggieri, a Goffriller, a Guadagnini (1768), and a 1610 Maggini among them. In 2000, Staryk co-authored a book with Thane Lewis about his life as a professional musician, Fiddling With Life. One of his students is Lenny Solomon, (leader of the group Bowfire.)
Jacques Israelievitch is a French violinist and teacher born on May 6, 1948. He is one of Canada's leading chamber music players and was the first to record all of Kreutzer’s 42 Etudes, a recording which has won abundant praise. Israelievitch graduated from the Le Mans Conservatory at age 11, the youngest graduate ever. Later on, his teachers were Henryk Szeryng and Josef Gingold, among others. He has been a concertmaster with the Chicago Symphony, the St Louis Symphony, and the Toronto Symphony (1988-2008.) He is currently on the faculty of the University of Toronto, but has also taught at Indiana University.
