Baiba and Lauma Skride, violin and piano
Sunday, October 28, 2012, 4pm
Saint Anthony Park United Church of Christ
directions
Pre-concert Discussion • 3pm
’Baiba Skride performed the concerto [Berg] almost like a prayer to the deeply moved audience, supported by Nelsons and the Berlin Philharmonic in the most tender way. Her Bach-encore was the icing on the cake.’’
- Berliner Morgenpost
Baiba Skride has appeared with prestigious orchestras such as the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra, Sydney Symphony and the US orchestras of Minnesota, Philadelphia, Houston and Cincinnati. Conductors she regularly collaborates with include Charles Dutoit, Thierry Fischer, Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, John Storgårds and with her peers, Andris Nelsons, and Kirill and Vasily Petrenko.
Recent highlights included Baiba Skride’s much anticipated debut with the Berlin Philharmonic playing Berg “To the memory of an Angel” with Andris Nelsons. The 2011/12 season saw their close collaborations continue with the Philharmonia Orchestra London performing the Bruch Violin Concerto No.1 with the City of Birmingham Orchestra. She opens her Mozart residency with the RTE National Symphony Dublin performing all the Mozart violin concertos and the Sinfonia Concertante. Skride performs with the Danish National Symphony and Thomas Sondergård, Stockholm Philharmonic and Niklas Willen, the Helsinki Philharmonic and Olari Elts, the Vienna Radio Symphony and Cornelius Meister, the Tonkünstler Orchester and John Storgårds, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Czech Philharmonic and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon.
In the USA Baiba Skride’s highlights include debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra at their Blossom Music Festival with Bramwell Tovey and further afield with the Boston Symphony and Andris Nelsons performing the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 2.
Skride’s growing commitment to contemporary music sees her perform the world premiere of the Double Concerto by the Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen with the Royal Danish and the Swedish Chamber Orchestras, with her long established chamber music partner Lauma Skride. The duo enjoys great international acclaim following tours of North America and Japan. European appearances include the Wigmore Hall, London, and Gewandhaus Leipzig. Collaborations with Maxim Rysanov, Sol Gabetta and Bertrand Chamayou take her to the Schubertiade Hohenems.
Baiba Skride just released a Brahms CD with the Orfeo label, including the Violin Concerto with the Stockholm Philharmonic and Sakari Oramo, as well as the Brahms Hungarian Dances with Lauma Skride. Her praised discography includes a Tchaikovsky CD with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, a duo recording with her sister (Schubert, Beethoven, Ravel), a solo violin disc (Ysaye, Bartok, Bach) and two concerto discs (Mozart, Schubert, M. Haydn; Shostakovich, Janacek), all for Sony.
Skride was born into a musical Latvian family in Riga where she began her studies, transferring in 1995 to the Conservatory of Music and Theatre in Rostock. In 2001 she won the 1st prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Since November 2010 Baiba has played the Stradivarius ‘’Ex Baron Feilitzsch’’ violin (1734), which is generously on loan to her from Gidon Kremer.
Lauma Skride, piano
Lauma Skride's playing is 'wonderfully sensitive, with marvellous tone quality, and always with highly virtuosic vigour', according to a review by the Bavarian Broadcasting Service. Combined with brilliant technique, these are the qualities with which Lauma Skride captivates audiences on major concert stages throughout the world, both as a soloist and chamber musician.
In recent seasons, Lauma Skride has appeared with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta de Gran Canaria. This season she appears with Berliner Kammerorchester and Markus Poschner and, with her long-established chamber music partner Baiba Skride, she will give world premiere performances of a new double concerto by Hans Abrahamsen, with the Royal Danish and Swedish Chamber Orchestras.
Lauma Skride, who was awarded the Beethoven Ring in 2008, is highly acclaimed for her interpretations of Germanic classical and romantic repertoire. Her broad repertoire includes works by Haydn and Schumann as well as rarities by such composers as Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn. Lauma Skride performs with such conductors as Andris Nelsons, Kristjan Järvi, Anu Tali, Muhai Tang, Peter Ruzicka, John Storgårds, Pedro Halffter, André de Ridder, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Cornelius Meister.
Lauma Skride continues to appear regularly as a duo with her sister, Baiba. The sisters recently performed the Haydn and Mendelssohn Double Concertos for violin and piano with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Zürich Chamber Orchestra. Last season, with Jan Vogler, they played Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, also presenting trio and duo recitals in Cincinnati and San Francisco. Passionate energy, youthful vigour and musical sensitivity have become the trademarks of the Skride duo, as they demonstrated to listeners at Hamburg's Laeiszhalle in June 2010. The duo will this season return to London’s Wigmore Hall for an evening recital, to include works by Prokofiev and Mozart.
Lauma Skride's chamber music partners also include cellists Daniel Müller-Schott, Jing Zhao, with whom she appeared in Tokyo and Osaka in December 2010, Sol Gabetta and Julian Steckel, with whom she appears this season in Saarbrücken, Stuttgart, Essen and Zürich.
Lauma Skride recorded Fanny Hensel's piano cycle Das Jahr for Sony in 2007 and received an ECHO Classic Award as Best Young Artist for this recording.
Born in Riga, Latvia, in 1982, Lauma Skride is the youngest of three daughters in a musical family. She began playing the piano at the age of five and was later a pupil of Anita Paze at the Emil Darzin School of Music in Riga. She then studied under Volker Banfield at the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. Lauma Skride has participated in numerous international competitions since the age of eleven, among them the Maria Canals Competition in Spain and the Cleveland International Piano Competition in the USA, and has won several prizes.
Acclaimed solo artists in their own rights, sisters Baiba and Lauma Skride appear regularly as a duo in chamber music recitals and with orchestras in Europe and the United States. With their passionate energy, youthful vigour, and musical sensitivity which have become the trademarks of the Skride duo, the sisters will make their Twin Cities recital debut on Music in the Park Series. However, Baiba Skride served as the finals judge in the Strings Categories of The Schubert Club's 2008 Bruce P. Carlson Student Scholarship Competition.
Program
| Sonata in D Major, D. 384 | Franz Schubert (1797-1828) |
| Rhapsody No. 2 | Béla Bartók (1881-1945) |
| 5 Hungarian Dances | Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) arr. Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) |
- Intermission - |
|
| Mythes: Trois Poèmes pour violin et piano, Op. 30 |
Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) |
| Tzigane | Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) |