Daniel Garlitsky

Daniel Garlitsky is a Russian violinist, composer, arranger, singer, and teacher born (in Moscow) on September 8, 1982.  In addition to being a classical violinist, he is well-known for playing jazz violin in various jazz combos.  He is frequently seen playing with Duved Dunayevsky, jazz guitarist based in Paris, France, who hearkens back to the days and style of Django Reinhardt.  Some have said that Garlitsky specializes in old style jazz, referencing the days of Eddie South, Stephane Grapelli, and Joe Venutti, though that is a much too narrow description of his artist profile.  He does, however, dress in the style of the times of the old jazz players when he performs jazz concerts, saying that modern suits make him look “like a security agent.”  He says the fashion helps project the charm of the old era of jazz so it’s like part of the show, providing a suitable backdrop for the music itself.  Garlitsky’s playing has been described as “exciting, elegant, subtle, and majestic, displaying incredible precision, character, and a pure sound."  Here is a video of a well-known jazz song – Minor Swing – featuring Garlitsky’s improvisational skills.  Violin players reading this will note that his bow hold and his bowing style is very similar to that of Heifetz.  Garlitsky began his violin studies at age 6 with his father (Boris Garlitsky, a respected violinist in Russia who served as concertmaster of the London Philharmonic for a time) using the violin method book written by his (Daniel’s) grandfather, Mikhail Garlitsky, a violin study method book widely used in Russia which is based on the study of scales and arpeggios, something that Heifetz and Paganini highly valued.  He was soon thereafter enrolled at the Gnessin school for gifted children in Moscow, where he also studied piano.  At age 9 (1991), he moved to France with his family, where he began studies at the Lyon Conservatory.  In 1999, he became a student at the National Conservatory for Music and Dance, graduating three years later.  He then immediately began concertizing around Europe and sat in as concertmaster with various orchestras as well.  Here is a video from early in his career when he served as leader of a famous European chamber ensemble.  Garlitsky was also seriously interested in harmonic theory and composition and, in addition, studied early music performance practices.  While doing all this, he encountered the field of jazz and swing music in Paris.  Later, he was invited to teach at the Paris Conservatory, but I don’t know whether he still teaches there.  One source says that his career actually took a 180 degree turn and so he now devotes almost all his time to jazz gigs, composing, and arranging. He is the composer of several movie soundtracks and has arranged songs for pop stars. His itinerary has taken him on tour to the U.S., Europe, and Asia.  He plays a modern violin made for him by Jacques Fustier in 2003 although he also plays a Joseph Guarnerius (son of Andrea Guarnerius and father of the famous “del Gesu” Joseph Guarnerius) from an unknown year of construction.  Among Garlitsky’s teachers are Igor Volochine, Rainer Kussmaul, Matis Vaitsner, Pierre Aimard, and Glenn Dicterow.  

Alexis Cardenas

 

Alexis Cardenas is a Venezuelan violinist, teacher, arranger, and composer born (in Maracaibo, Venezuela) on March 24, 1976.  (Maracaibo is in northwest Venezuela, about 300 miles west of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.)  He is one of Venezuela’s leading violinists and is well known for doing a lot of crossover work with one group known as Recoveco.  Here is an audio file of a studio recording which is typical of their style.  Cardenas is a leading exponent of Venezuelan folk music, although his formal training is entirely in (and from) the classical realm.  His arrangements of traditional Latin American folk music incorporate classical music, often including direct quotes, especially of Bach violin sonatas.  For the past 25 years, his home base has been Paris, France, where he is co-concertmaster of the Orchestre National d'Île-de-France (National Orchestra of the Isle of France or National Orchestra of the Region of France, an area which is made up of eight districts immediately surrounding Paris.)  The orchestra was established in 1974 and serves a population of approximately twelve million people.  Its main venue is the Philharmonie de Paris.  Here is a YouTube video of the orchestra performing a theatrical piece for narrator and orchestra, Ondin and the Little Mermaid (Ondin et la Petit Sirène.)  Here is another featuring a rather unique presentation of two Tchaikovsky works.  Another unique performance - this time of a Scarlatti Sonata - is here – it is reminiscent of what Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto sometimes does in some of his performances.  Cardenas began his violin studies at age 9 in Maracaibo.  Among his first teachers was Jose Baldaen.  He made his public debut at age 12 (one source says age 11) with the Maracaibo Symphony, playing the Mendelssohn concerto (the one in e minor.)  A year later (1989), he soloed with the Tchaikovsky concerto, but I don’t know with what orchestra.  He began his studies at the Juilliard school in New York in 1990.  (One source says he left for New York in 1992.)  His teacher there was Margaret Pardee – many young violinists from Venezuela studied with Pardee.  Three years later, at age 15, Cardenas returned to Venezuela and was appointed concertmaster of the National Philharmonic.  He was also a guest soloist with every major orchestra in Venezuela during this time.  At age 17 (1995) he left Venezuela for Paris where he enrolled at the National Conservatory for Music and Dance.  His teacher there was Olivier Charlier but he also studied with Jean Kantorow and Roland Dugareuil later on.  He entered his first violin competition (Tibor Varga in Switzerland) in 1997.  He has concertized in Europe, Russia, Canada, and South America, working with well-known conductors, including Pavel Kogan, Alondra de la Parra, Pablo Ziegler, and Gustavo Dudamel.  I do not know if he has ever toured the U.S.  He has won silver and bronze medals in various violin competitions, including the Paganini violin competition in Genoa in 2002 and Montreal violin competition in 2003.  His best-known studio recording is “Stories Without Words” which is easily found on the internet.  Cardenas is currently composing a violin concerto which will incorporate non-traditional instruments (mostly from Caribbean countries and South America) in a symphonic score.  It should be completed within the next year.  He has stated that his motivation is his enormous curiosity.  I do not know what violin he plays. 

Daniel Kurganov

Daniel Kurganov (Daniel Alexandrovich Kurganov) is an American violinist, violist, pedagogue, musicologist, producer, and entrepreneur, born (in Minsk, Belarus, in the former USSR) on November 29, 1986.  (Minsk is a city located about 100 miles southeast of Vilnius, Lithuania – the birthplace of Jascha Heifetz – and 450 miles southwest of Moscow.)  He is well known for (almost certainly) being the only concert violinist in history to have begun his violin studies after the age of 12.  He is also very well known for (indisputably) having the most comprehensive violin tutorial YouTube Channel, which addresses every conceivable issue having to do with technique and interpretation – bowing, shifting, legato, vibrato, articulation, scales, phrasing, intonation, etc..  Kurganov has over 47,000 subscribers on YouTube and his channel is still growing.  On other social media, he has a strong presence as well.  As if that weren’t enough, he delves into related subjects which are fascinating for professionals and non-professionals alike.  One of his popular videos features him playing the da Vinci Stradivarius violin previously owned by Toscha Seidel, which was recently sold for more than 15 million dollars.  In fact, Kurganov began his YouTube channel posting (from his collection) old 78 RPM recordings by Seidel.  His teaching and recording projects have been highlighted in The Strad, the most respected classical music periodical in the world.  He maintains a private teaching studio in the Boston (USA) area but also teaches virtually via Zoom.  He can spend anywhere between 10 seconds (!!!) and more than an hour assessing a prospective student.  His family had moved from Minsk to the Chicago area when he was still a child and he further relocated from Chicago to Boston in 2011.  Besides being a violinist (and violist), he has something else in common with Nicolo Paganini – he began his instrumental studies with piano and guitar.  Kurganov switched to violin at age 16.  His first teacher was Alla Danichkina in Chicago.  Up to that point, Danichkina had been Kurganov’s piano teacher but she happened to also be a violinist so the transition was uninterrupted.  Having overcome prodigious obstacles, he made his professional violin debut not in a concert hall but in a Russian restaurant in the Chicago area, playing violin duos with his violin teacher in 2003 at the age of 17 – many concert artists are half way through their solo careers by that age.  This brings us to another special coincidence: Josef Gingold, Albert Sammons, Alfredo Campoli, Joseph Roisman, Manuel Quiroga, Jacques Thibaud, Theodore Thomas, Vasa Prihoda, Geza Legocky, and Louis Krasner also played in hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs prior to establishing their classical careers. (That is a little-known fact.)  Among his other teachers is Rudolf Koelman (in Switzerland), protégé of Jascha Heifetz.  Although Kurganov is widely respected for his achievements and artistry, he has also faced professional bias due to his late start.  (The world of classical violin is extremely competitive but a quick look at one of his videos – or his CDs - will quickly dissuade anyone from that biased point of view.)  Quite interestingly, it was only his colleagues who tried to persuade him to give up (since he was starting so late); his teachers never advised him to drop out.  Kurganov has concertized in the U.S, Europe, and the Far East.  He also plays duo recitals with pianist Constantine Finehouse as well as in a piano trio.  Although he will spontaneously alter a phrase in the midst of a live performance, in the tradition of Szigeti and Heifetz, Kurganov is a rigorous and meticulous violinist.  In that regard, he might be considered to be the opposite of violinists like Ivry Gitlis, Gilles Apap, and Sergei Stadler, whose approach is rather impetuous, giving the impression that their performances could become unhinged at any moment.  Kurganov’s repertoire includes many technically demanding contemporary works but he has said that contemporary composers need to not “make the violin seem overqualified for the job.”  Reviews of his performances speak for themselves.  Outside of the violin and pedagogic world, Kurganov’s other interests include chess (which almost 100% of concert violinists play) and photography - as a photographer, he is still entertaining the idea of having a solo exhibition.  Kurganov has also designed a shoulder rest which may soon reach the market.  As we all know, history has a way of repeating itself - after one unique concert in Switzerland, Kurganov was paid in gold (after playing for nobility, Mozart used to be paid with jewels or snuff boxes, Elias Breeskin received a valuable ring, and Bronislaw Huberman received a violin as payment.)  Kurganov has played and had access to priceless violins throughout his career (violins by old masters like Stradivari and Guarneri) but his current violin is a modern violin by Andrew Ryan.  He has stated that three artists with whom he would like to spend time conversing are J.S. Bach, Glenn Gould, and Daniil Shafran (an interesting choice.)

 

Linus Roth

Linus Roth is a German violinist born (in Ravensburg, Germany) on May 31, 1977.  (Ravensburg is about 100 miles west of Munich)  In addition to his brilliant technique and uncompromising musicianship, he is known for having saved Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg from oblivion.  From age 15, Roth has been the recipient of many top awards at various violin competitions.  Roth has also won the ECHO KLASSIK Award twice for his recordings under the EMI and Challenge Records labels.  (The ECHO KLASSIK is Germany’s top classical music award.)  In 2013, Roth received Gramophone music magazine’s Editor’s Choice honors for his recordings of Weinberg’s violin concerto, the Concertino for violin and chamber orchestra, and the complete works for violin and piano.  Every Roth recording is easy to find on the internet.  Among many other works, Weinberg also composed three sonatas for solo violin which Roth has also recently recorded.  Although he has spent most of his career in Europe, Roth has played in venues across the world, including North and South America and the Far East.  As is customary for many classical concert artists, he also plays chamber music (in concert) with a wide variety of world class musicians.  Roth began violin lessons at age 5.  He received his first instruction from his mother, who is a cellist.  At age 6, he made his first public appearance.  His first solo performance with orchestra, at which he played the Mendelssohn concerto (the one in e minor), took place at age 11.  The following year, he began lessons in Zurich with Ukrainian-Polish violinist Nicolas Chumachenco, well-known violin pedagogue.  Four years later, at age 16, he began studying with Russian violin Professor Zakhar Bron, in Lubeck, Germany.  (Bron was also the teacher of Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Mari Samuelsen, and Daniel Hope.)  Beginning at age 20, he started lessons with someone who would become his most influential teacher, Ana Chumachenco, first in Zurich, then in Munich.  (Ana Chumachenco is Nicolas Chumachenco’s sister.)  In 2012, Roth was appointed violin professor at the Leopold Music Center of Augsburg University where he still teaches.  In 2018, he established the Ibiza (Spain) music festival called Ibiza Concerts.  (Ibiza is an island off the eastern coast of Spain – a very short trip by airplane, but a long trip by ferry.)  Toward that end, he is learning Spanish – he already speaks German, English, and Italian.  He also was appointed Artistic Director, in 2020, of the Spring Music Festival at Ochsenhausen, Germany.  (Ochsenhausen is about 60 miles west of Munich.)  I believe all of their concerts will be streamed live in 2021, although I’m not absolutely sure about that.  Up until the end of 2019, Roth maintained an incredibly busy concert schedule.  However, his schedule was disrupted by events which took every artist around the world by surprise.  Not one single artist was spared the consequences of the worldwide events which resulted from the severe Covid-19 pandemic.  However, Roth wisely spent some of his time off doing a lot of recording that does not require an orchestra, including the six works for solo violin by Bach.  I do not know if any of those CDs have been issued yet.  Fortunately, as his website shows, an upcoming concert tour with Anne-Sophie Mutter as partner will relaunch his concert itinerary.  In a recent interview, Roth was asked which two musicians from the past he would most like to meet; his choices were composer Ludwig Van Beethoven and conductor Carlos Kleiber.  Beethoven is not an unusual choice, but Carlos Kleiber is.  As far as I know, Kleiber never appeared with or conducted for any soloists on stage.  His concerts were all-orchestral concerts or operas; same as his recordings.  Nevertheless, many widely-respected musicians (and many music critics) regard him as the best conductor of the twentieth century.  Roth has stated that he “wouldn’t want to discuss anything musical with him; rather, I would ask him about his views on life, spiritual things, and about the aura of certain other people he worked with.  I’m sure he felt these intensely.  In case we would have managed to have some glasses of wine together, I would ask him about his youth in South America, the atmosphere there, and his feelings about coming back to Munich in 1952 to be Korrepetitor [an opera singer’s coach and accompanist] at the Gärtnerplatz Theater München.”  As for Weinberg, Roth first discovered his music in 2010 (one source says 2011.).  He has championed Weinberg’s music ever since and founded (in 2015) the International Mieczyslaw Weinberg Society which promotes Weinberg’s music.  Weinberg’s violin concerto was dedicated to Leonid Kogan, who recorded it in 1959 or 1960.  Here is a YouTube video with Roth speaking briefly about the concerto, including footage of his recording session in Berlin in August, 2013.  Unlike most concert violinists, Roth is not a chess player (he prefers backgammon), but in a matter of a few months, he will join Kristof Barati and Jeremy Constant as being one of the extremely rare people who are both concert violinists and airplane pilots.  Roth maintains his mental and physical stamina by regularly working out at a gymnasium.  (Arabella Steinbacher practices Yoga but, as far as I know, never sets foot in a gym.)  Here is a YouTube video with Roth playing the Bach E major concerto.  Be prepared to experience a very special and unexpected ending to that video.  Here is another fascinating video showing a rehearsal for the recording session of the Tchaikovsky concerto with the London Symphony.  Since 1997, Roth has played the 1703 Dancla Stradivarius, although he played many other violins before that, including a Landolfi of unknown date.  The photo is courtesy of Belgian Photographer Diego Franssens.  

Maria Dueñas

María Dueñas (Maria Dueñas Fernandez) is a Spanish violinist and composer, born (in Granada) on December 4, 2002. She is very likely the best Spanish violinist since Pablo Sarasate (1844-1908.) She is also known as a former child prodigy. She has been winning violin competitions since she was 14 years old, including the Zhuhai (China), the Vladimir Spivakov (Russia), the G.P Telemann (Poland), the Yankelevitch (Russia), the Leonid Kogan (Belgium), and the Luigi Zanuccoli (Italy) violin competitions. * (see comments below) Since she is also a composer, she writes her own cadenzas for each concerto she plays. As a member of the Hamamelis Quartet, she also won first prize at the Fidelio Chamber Music Competition in Vienna in 2017. She began her violin studies at age 5 in Spain. I do not know who her first teacher was. At age 7, she entered the Granada Conservatory. She made her local debut with the Granada Symphony at age 11, playing the first concerto of Mozart. Andrea Marcon was on the podium. When she was 12 years old, her family moved to Vienna so that she could study with Boris Kuschnir (well-known violin pedagogue) at the University for Music and Art in Graz and at the Music and Arts University in Vienna, Austria. (Graz is about a two-hour drive from Vienna, driving south.) In this effort, she was assisted by Russian violinist, Vladimir Spivakov. (Spivakov’s Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra has a very strong connection to Spain.) In September of 2019, she was named Artist of the Month by Musical America being only 16 years old. Dueñas has already concertized in many countries around the world (including the U.S.) and has played in some of the most prestigious concert halls but, since she is still a student at the University, understandably spends most of her time in Europe. Here is one of her many YouTube video performances. You can judge her virtuosity and style for yourself. Dueñas speaks four languages fluently – German, English, French, and Spanish. She is also currently studying the Russian language. Two of her violins have been a Nicolo Gagliano (1764), on loan from the German Musical Life Foundation and the Muntz Guarneri (1736) on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. I do not know if she is still using either one of those fine violins. The photo is courtesy of David Ausserhoffer.