Pablo Barragán & Sophie Pacini
Biography Pablo Barragán & Sophie Pacini
Pablo Barragan
With music one can say what cannot be expressed otherwise. Music makes intangible things tangible and touches in a special way. From the first note, Pablo Barragán masterfully creates a connection to his audience. His performance is differentiated, elegant and perfectly nuanced. For each work the Spaniard creates his own color palette, even reaching sometimes for the basset clarinet.
As soloist and chamber musician, his performances lead him again and again through Germany and Europe, from the Philharmonie in Berlin, to the Bayerischen Rundfunk in Munich, the Laieszhalle in Hamburg, the Tonhalle Zürich, to the Konzertgesellschaft Basel, into the Auditori Barcelona and to the Athenaeum in Bucharest.
Pablo Barragán’s curiosity always leads him to new interpretive discoveries with orchestras such as the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Hamburger Symphoniker, the Orquesta de Radio Television Española, the Slovak Philharmonie and Chamber Orchestra, Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, or the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra and with conductors such as Clemens Schuldt, Gabriel Feltz, and Christoph Poppen.
The intimacy of chamber music in turn opens up entirely new perspectives. Making music together with for example Martha Agerich, Viviane Hagner, Kian Soltani, Vivi Vassileva, Frank Dupree, Mario Härig or the Schumann and Novus Quartets, and at festivals such as Lucerne Festival, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Klosters Music, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Young Euro Classic Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival or the Bratislava Music Festival, has a very special meaning for him.
His musical friendship with Juan Pérez Floristán (piano) and Andrei Ioniţă (cello) led in 2018 to his highly praised debut recording of the Brahms clarinet trios and sonatas on the Spanish label IBS. Since then, the three have given performances in leading musical centers of Europe.
Barragán was awarded the Prix Credit Suisse Jeunes Solistes in 2013 and honored with an invitation to the Lucerne Festival the same year. He is a prizewinner in numerous international competitions including the ARD Music Competition 2012, the Juventudes Musicales de España 2011 and the European Music Competition for Youth 2011 (EMCY).
Barragán studied at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid before moving to Matthias Glander at the Barenboim-Said Foundation in Berlin. In 2009, he went to the Basel Academy of Music, where he studied in the master class of François Benda. Martin Fröst, Charles Niedich and Dimitri Ashkenazy also gave him new impulses in master classes.
Pablo Barragán is a Backun Clarinets Artist and performs exclusively on Backun Lumière clarinets. As a representative of D’Addario & Silverstein and as professor of the Orchestra Joven de Andalucía, he gives masterclasses in his home country to promote young talent. Since 2020, Barragán is professor of clarinet at the Barenboim-Said Foundation.
Sophie Pacini
"Her expressivity never becomes an end in itself: at any one moment her playing is artistic, contemplative, surprising and illuminating" (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
For nearly two decades the young charismatic German-Italian pianist Sophie Pacini has established herself firmly as a pianist of exceptional musicality and virtuosity whose interpretations display exceptional originality. Highlights of the last and current season include concerts with the Cuban European Youth Orchestra as part of Rheingau Musik Festival and “Young Euro Classic” Festival Berlin as well as concerts with Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Cape Town Philharmonic, Staatsorchester Braunschweig, Saarländisches Staatsorchester Saarbrücken, Sinfonieorchester Bern and Staatskapelle Weimar at Munich’s Philharmonic, as well as solo recitals at Wiener Konzerthaus, La Seine Musicale Paris, SWR 2 International Piano Series in Mainz, Fundación Scherzo in Madrid and at international festivals such as Lucerne Piano Festival, the Klavierfestival Ruhr and the Schumannfest Bonn, the Wigmore Hall in London, the BOZAR in Brussels and the Opera de Dijon.
Since her concert debut at the age of 8 in 2000, Sophie Pacini has appeared in many renowned concert halls across Europe including KKL Luzern, Philharmonie Berlin, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Beethovenhalle Bonn, Tonhalle Zürich, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Philharmonie am Gasteig München, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Herkulessaal München, La seine musicale Paris, Konzerthaus Berlin and Kurhaus Wiesbaden. In recital, she has performed at international festivals such as Lucerne Piano Festival, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Piano aux Jacobins Toulouse, Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus with Gidon Kremer, Festspiele Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, Progetto Martha Argerich Lugano, Sommets musicaux de Gstaad and Rencontres musicales d’Evian.
As a soloist, Sophie Pacini has appeared with orchestras such as Gewandhausorchester zu Leipzig, Camerata Salzburg, Dresdner Philharmonic, Sinfonieorchester Bern, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in Suntory Hall and Orchard Hall.
Recently named "Young Artist of the Year" at the 2017 International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) and 2015 ECHO KLASSIK Newcomer of the Year. Pacini also received the Prix “Groupe Edmond de Rothschild” at the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad with Dmitri Bashkirov as Jury President and Musikfest Bremen’s Deutschlandfunk Förderpreis describing her as “one of the greatest talents of her generation.”
Her first solo album for Warner Classics of works by Beethoven and Liszt was released in September 2016 and her new album "In Between" also for that label was released in 2018. Her new album “Rimembranze” is scheduled for release in spring 2020.
Pacini began her studies at the age of ten as a student of Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Salzburg Mozarteum, then moved to the newly founded Institute for Highly Gifted Students. She earned her diploma in 2011 with honors while she continued to join master classes of Pavel Gililov, Dmitri Bashkirov and Fou T s’ong.
In 2010, she became acquainted with Martha Argerich, who invited her the following year to give a recital as part of the Martha Argerich Project in Lugano; the meeting marked the beginning of a long term personal and artistic friendship. Sophie performed in Argerich’s new festival in Hamburg, and in 2020, they will embark on a tour of Beethoven duos for four hands.
