Top Soloists Take to the Stage Alongside the Kaliningrad Symphony Orchestra at InClassica

nClassica 2021 is the biggest and most ambitious music festival to ever take place in the Middle East, welcoming a staggering 37 world-renowned soloists, 7 celebrated orchestras and 11 leading conductors to Dubai for a 30-day celebration of sublime musicianship, world-class performance and international collaboration. InClassica is pleased to present the biggest names in classical music today, featuring performers from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas, for an unrivalled programme of phenomenal concerts taking place at the Dubai Opera and Coca-Cola Arena. The festival features a range of music from distinguished historical European composers, as well as works from the event’s Composer-in-Residence, Alexey Shor. 

Last night at InClassica

Images of Nature
Coca-Cola Arena

The evening’s concert began with Zoltán Kodály’s ‘Dances of Galánta’. Together with his friend Béla Bartók, the composer became involved in ethnomusicological research, visiting remote villages where he asked the inhabitants to sing their folk songs into phonograph cylinders. ‘Dances of Galánta’ refers to a city located in Slovakia — a place that when Kodály lived there as a child, however, was still part of the Kingdom of Hungary. When Kodály was asked, in 1933, to write a composition for the 80th anniversary of the Philharmonic Society in Budapest, he remembered the music Roma orchestras were playing in the city of his childhood. Thus, he also underlined how much Hungarian music owes to the creativity and virtuosity of Romani people. Without any doubt, David Aaron Carpenter is one of the most outstanding violists of our time and the ideal soloist for Béla Bartók’s late Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. When the Hungarian composer was asked to write his concerto by the famous violist William Primrose, he was already suffering from leukaemia. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to finish the orchestration. As a highly praised apprentice of Béla Bartók, Tibor Serly brought the composer’s sketches into the form which made it one of the most widely performed works of the genre. Robert Schumann’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor was originally meant to become a Fantasy. As such, the concerto we know today is marked by a distinctly symphonic character. It illustrates the longing and joy felt by a loving couple, the difficulties that Clara and Robert Schumann had to overcome before they were finally allowed to marry easily recognisable in the concerto played on this occasion by Julia Zilberquit. Yesterday’s concert featured the Kaliningrad Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arkady Feldman.

Julia Zilberquit (piano)
 - “I really like it here, I love this festival. It's my first time in Dubai, but this is the third time I'm performing at InClassica and I'm glad to be here again.”

 - “Today we played with a wonderful team and a great maestro, Arkady Feldman. The Schumann Concerto that I performed is one of the most famous piano concertos, I love it very much and play a lot. It is very nice to introduce it to a local audience. The audience in the hall was wonderful, they didn't let me go for a long time; if I had known that this would happen, I would have played a second encore.”

David Aaron Carpenter (viola)
 - How did you enjoy the performance? “Absolutely fantastic! It’s a privilege and an honour to be here in Dubai. Having this experience with this wonderful orchestra and Maestro Feldman, I just want to give praise to Konstantin Ishkhanov for putting all this together in such a short time period. From the Malta Festival to InClassica in Dubai, it’s unbelievable what they’ve put together — the orchestras, the planning, the equipment, everything. We’re in the Coca-Cola Arena tonight, and if you think of all the supporting things that need to be in place, what they’ve done is nothing short of a miracle.”
How did you select the repertoire?  “It’s interesting that the Bartók viola concerto and the Schumann piano concerto were the only works written by their respective composers for those instruments. Robert Schumann never actually completed the work — he passed away of leukaemia in 1945, and it was taken on by Tibor Serly, who was his protegé and violist in the Philadelphia orchestra. He took the work and finished it, so what you heard tonight is his interpretation. It's a really great work. Also, the Schumann was written in 1845, and the Bartók in 1945, so they were exactly one hundred years apart, and they’re both written in A minor, another funny similarity between these works. It’s a staple in the viola repertoire, so this, combined with some of the Shor pieces was great. Having Alexey as a longtime collaborator — he was the first to write me over fifty works for viola and orchestra — it’s just great, and it’s nice to perform a lot of his works. I really think he’s one of the most brilliant people that I know, he has a PHD in mathematics, and now is also a burgeoning superstar composer.“
How has everything been from an organisational point-of-view? “I have to say the European Foundation for Support of Culture has always been there for me and anything I needed, and they’ve been responsive and always ready to take care of anything that needed to be done. It’s truly unbelievable, the level of attention and detail to everything that they’ve done.”

Arkady Feldman
 - “For me, every concert is an event, but performing here at InClassica is, of course, a special event. A festival of this scale imposes a great responsibility. We have been together with the Kaliningrad Symphony Orchestra for 35 years, I know how they can concentrate, and despite the fact that this is the 18th concert of the ensemble here in Dubai, they are in great shape. This is good training for them, a busy period of work that has brought a lot of benefits. Every day, the musicians performed with different conductors, soloists, and programmes”

 - “David Aaron Carpenter is a unique artist who combines the qualities of a wonderful musician and a very pleasant person in communication and work. Julia Zilberquit is an experienced pianist, with a fine sense. I have enjoyed our cooperation very much and I hope to meet them again. It is a great pleasure for me and for the Kaliningrad Symphony Orchestra to work with such high-level soloists.”

 - "For an encore, we played two pieces by the Composer-in-Residence of the festival Alexey Shor. These are "Mark's Lullaby" and "Natalie's Waltz", which we combined into one work at the suggestion of David Aaron Carpenter. These plays evoke a sense of peace and satisfaction. These are new works for the orchestra, but the musicians have already performed the music of Alexey Shor many times, they know his style and can quickly navigate the work.”

Quotes From Those in Attendance: 

“Amazing performance. I feel really lucky to have been able to be here to witness it” — audience member

“It was a different concert for me because I’d never heard any of these pieces performed live before, but it was really, really nice. I really enjoyed it” — audience member

“I thought both Julia and David were fantastic. And the orchestra were really good as well. Very happy to have been here, and I hope there will be more concerts like this in the future” — audience member 

Tonight at InClassica*

The Greatest Virtuosos
Coca-Cola Arena

Alexander Borodin and Sergei Prokofiev – two very different aspects of Russian creativity. Borodin's Symphony No. 2 is a fascinating example of how the composers of the circle The mighty little heap integrated Russian influences and subjects into their works. With its ethereal and lyric passages and beauty of tone, Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 seems as if it had been composed for a gifted and profound musician like Roman Simović. Sergei Prokofiev's Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2, premiered in 1912, is of such virtuosity and difficulty that many pianists refuse to play it in live concerts. Young Korean pianist Yekwon Sunwoo is defying the technical difficulties of this intimidating concerto under the baton of Mikhail Kirchoff.

• Yekwon Sunwoo (piano)
• Roman Simovic (violin)
• Mikhail Kirchhoff
• Kaliningrad Symphony Orchestra

*Full details (including quotes from performers and attendees) will be available tomorrow. For any enquiries regarding tonight’s performance, please contact us.

Organised by the European Foundation for Support of Culture and SAMIT Event Group, the 2021 Edition of the InClassica International Music Festival is currently underway, with daily concerts taking place until the 26th of September. For more information or to book tickets, please visit the official website at inclassica.com.