Encounter Arethusa Quartet & Chen Halevi

• Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960): The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind: Prelude:
• 1 Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind: Prelude: Calmo, Sospeso 03:20
• 2 Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind: I. Agitato - Con Fuoco - Maestoso - Senza Misura, Oscilante 09:16
• 3 Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind: II. Teneramente - Ruvido - Presto 11:19
• 4 Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind: III. Calmo, Sospeso - Allegro Pesante 07:50
• 5 Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind: Postlude: Lento, Liberamente 02:24
• Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946): String Quartet No. 6: I. Canto 1:
• 6 Vasks: String Quartet No. 6: I. Canto 1: Farewell — Andante con passione 03:43
• 7 Vasks: String Quartet No. 6: II. Looking back — Allegro appassionato 11:38
• String Quartet No. 6: III. Canto 2:
• 8 Vasks: String Quartet No. 6: III. Canto 2: Leaving — Andante cantabile 03:41
• String Quartet No. 6: IV. Corale:
• 9 Vasks: String Quartet No. 6: IV. Corale: Encounter — Adagio / Molto adagio 06:28
• Total Runtime 59:39

Info zu Encounter

Encounter vereint zwei herausragende Werke der zeitgenössischen Kammermusik, die über Kulturen, Geschichten und innere Welten hinweg miteinander sprechen. Osvaldo Golijovs The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind und Pēteris Vasks’ Streichquartett Nr. 6 entstammen zutiefst unterschiedlichen Traditionen – jüdischer Mystik und baltischer Spiritualität – und begegnen sich doch in einer gemeinsamen Suche nach Wahrheit, Erinnerung und Transzendenz. Beide Werke sind zutiefst persönlich, in gelebter Erfahrung und Glauben verwurzelt und getragen von der Kraft der Musik, dem Ausdruck zu verleihen, was jenseits der Worte liegt: Sehnsucht, Leid, Hoffnung und Erleuchtung. In dieser Aufnahme existieren diese Welten nicht nur nebeneinander; sie hören einander zu, spiegeln sich und verwandeln sich gegenseitig.

Eingespielt vom Arethusa Quartet gemeinsam mit dem Klarinettisten Chen Halevi, ist Encounter zugleich ein Zusammentreffen künstlerischer Lebenswege. Golijovs ekstatische, rituell anmutende Partitur entfaltet sich als spiritueller Aufstieg durch Träume, Gebete und Blindheit – verstanden als vertiefte innere Schau –, während Vasks’ Sechstes Quartett den Bogen eines Lebens nachzeichnet: vom Abschied und Erinnern hin zu einer letzten, leisen Begegnung mit dem Transzendenten, erhellt von Beethoven-Echos. In beiden Werken halten sich Verletzlichkeit und Intensität die Waage mit Stille und Gesang, Dunkelheit mit Licht. So entsteht ein Album, das zugleich intim und universell wirkt: eine Bekräftigung geteilter Menschlichkeit und eine Erinnerung an die bleibende Fähigkeit der Musik, Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Erde und Geist, Ausführende und Hörende miteinander zu verbinden.

Chen Halevi, Klarinette
Arethusa Quartet

Chen Halevi
The debut of 15-year-old clarinettist Chen Halevi with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Metha was a sensation. Born in the Negev desert in Israel, he studied clarinet with Yitzhak Kazap and Richard Lesser and chamber music with Mordechai Rechtman and Chaim Taub. Today Chen Halevi is one of the world's leading clarinet virtuosos and plays solo programmes as well as solo concerts with orchestra and chamber music with equal success. He stands for an impressive range of repertoire, from the most difficult contemporary music to early music on authentic baroque instruments.

Halevi has performed as a soloist with major orchestras in the United States, Europe and Japan, including the Israel Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, Jerusalem Radio Orchestra, MDR and NDR Symphony Orchestras, Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin and, for the first time in 2010, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on the occasion of the American premiere of Magnus Lindberg's composition "Kraft" conducted by Alan Gilbert.

Chen Halevi has performed at the festivals of Marlboro, Ravinia and Santa Fe in the USA and in Europe at festivals in Schleswig Holstein, Colmar, Forcalquier, Prussia Cove, Davos and Verbier. He has also participated in the PMF Festival in Japan and the Perth International Arts Festival.

A great lover of chamber music, Chen Halevi has performed with Pinchas Zuckerman and Christoph Eschenbach as well as with well-known string quartets such as Keller, Szymanowski, Fine arts, Miro, St. Lawrence, Vogler and Kronos Quartets.

He is internationally recognised as a masterful specialist in the performance of contemporary music. Through his close connections with composers he has performed a large number of works by, among others, Berio, Kurtag, Lindberg, Golijov, Maresz, Jarrell, Ferneyhough, Stroppa, Mantovani and Ades. Several works have also been dedicated to Chen Halevi, including a cycle by Denis Cohen, "Nodus" for clarinet solo, "Ombre" for clarinet and electronics, "soft machine" for clarinet and cello, a clarinet trio by Lior Navok, "Les asperges de la lune" for clarinet solo and the clarinet concerto "Doppelgänger" by Sven Ingo Koch.

Halevi's appointment as professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen in 2001 was a revolution for the German music academy landscape, as he is one of the very few clarinettists in such a position who does not play the "German system", but the "Boehm clarinet" used outside the German-speaking world. This enrichment, further development and opening of the traditional clarinet training in Germany means great opportunities for his students.

Since 2007 he has been one of the lecturers at the summer festival of the "Banff Center".

Arethusa Quartet
The new Arethusa Quartet was founded in 2023 and unifies four exciting, internationally renowned musicians with backgrounds both as soloists and in world famous chamber groups. Having shared the stage in numerous festivals, Daniel Rowland, Floor Le Coultre, Dana Zemtsov and Maja Bogdanovic developed a deep friendship, bonded over their complementary passions and ideals, and decided to create this dynamic and unique group.

Daniel, Floor, Dana and Maja combine great imagination, creativity and adventures in their performances. Their mesmerizing intensity derives from always being 'in the moment' while playing music. Not long after it was founded, the Arethusa Quartet was already invited by numerous festivals and concert venues. Its members are passionate advocates of music of our time and have already (in their first season!) worked closely together with composers such as Peteris Vasks and Osvaldo Golijov.

​The Arethusa Quartet takes its name from the mythical, magical water nymph called Arethusa. There is a very beautiful work by the composer Karol Szymanowski called The Fountain of Arethusa. The story is about the beautiful water nymph, who is desired by all kinds of gods and demigods. One of those demigods, Alpheus, sees her in the water and tries to catch her. The moment he thinks he has caught her, she turns into the water itself and becomes one with nature. She is unreachable for the hands of the demigod. This vaporous concept of longing can also be applied to art, and to music in particular. It is beautifully unreachable. It is impossible to grasp. And if you think 'now I have it!', it is already gone.

Daniel Rowland
Dutch/English violinist Daniel Rowland’s playing has been acclaimed as ‘wonderful, ravishing in its finesse’ by The Guardian and as ‘both naked and highly virtuosic’ by NRC Handelsblad, while The Herald praised his ‘astonishing sound and uniquely single-minded intensity’.

Daniel has established himself on the international scene as a highly versatile, communicative, charismatic and adventurous performer, with a broad repertoire from Vivaldi to Van der Aa. In recent seasons Daniel has performed with concertos ranging from Beethoven to Brahms, Elgar, Berg, Korngold, Weinberg and Prokofiev, with conductors such as Heinz Holliger, Jaap van Zweden, François-Xavier Roth, Lawrence Foster, Antony Hermus and Rossen Milanov. He is a passionate advocate of contemporary concertos such as Vasks, Lindberg, Glass, Saariaho, Nisinman and Van der Aa. Recently he premiered Isidora Zebeljan‘s Violin Concerto ‘Three Curious Loves’ and this autumn sees the premiere of Roxanna Panufnik‘s ‘Songs of Love and Friendship’ with the Dutch Radio Choir at the Concertgebouw. September 2020 sees the release of ‘Distant Light’, with violin concertos by Peteris Vasks (Challenge Records).

A passionate chamber musician, Daniel has performed with artists as diverse as Ivry Gitlis, Heinz Holliger, Martha Argerich, Michael Collins, Lars Vogt, Giovanni Sollima, Marcelo Nisinman, Willard White and Elvis Costello. Daniel is one half of acclaimed duo partnerships with pianist Natacha Kudritskaya with whom he earlier recorded for Champs Hill Records a disc dedicated to the Enescu Sonatas (‘a perfect partnership’ – BBC Music Magazine), and with cellist Maja Bogdanovic, whose recent duo CD ‘Pas de deux’ (Challenge Records) was described as ‘a magical meeting between violin and cello’ by Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad. In 2005 Daniel founded the Stift International Music Festival in the bucolic region of Twente in the eastern Netherlands, where he grew up, with the 15th century Stiftkerk as the main venue. The festival has garnered acclaim as one of great intimacy, adventure and atmosphere. Daniel was for twelve years the leader of the Brodsky Quartet, performing all over the world, and making numerous recordings, including the celebrated Shostakowitch Cycle.

Daniel was born in London, and started his violin lessons in Enschede after his parents moved to Twente in the eastern Netherlands. He studied with Jan Repko, Davina van Wely, Herman Krebbers, Viktor Liberman, Igor Oistrakh and Ivry Gitlis. His violin is by Lorenzo Storioni (Cremona 1796), and his bow is a Maline, kindly loaned by the Dutch Instrument Foundation. He teaches at the Royal College of Music in London. He lives in Amsterdam with his partner, cellist Maja Bogdanovic´.

Maja Bogdanović
“Cellist Maja Bogdanović is the real thing; a true, soulful artist with a brazenly expressive sound who has a lot to show off, but who is never pretentious.” - New York Concert Review Following her stunning recital debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, the Strad hailed Maja Bogdanović for “an outstanding performance of exceptional tonal beauty and great maturity of interpretation.” Since then, she has taken her place among today’s foremost cellists.

Concert engagements have included the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Tokyo Philharmonic, Minas Gerais Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, RTS Serbian Symphony orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Symphony, Brasov Philharmonic, Timisoara Philharmonic, Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra, Morelia Philharmonic Orchestra, Salta Sinfonica, Cape Town Philharmonic, Johannesburg Philharmonic and KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban. In the USA, Ms. Bogdanović made her debut at the 2017 Grand Teton Music Festival under the baton of Cristian Macelaru. She has also performed with the Fort Worth Symphony, Spokane Symphony, Lubbock Symphony and Bakersfield Symphony.

An avid chamber musician, Maja Bogdanović is a frequent guest at leading chamber music festivals and the world’s leading venues, such as Kuhmo Festival in Finland, Amsterdamse Cello Biënnale, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, Folle Journée/Nantes, Storioni Festival, the Stift International Chamber Music Festival in The Netherlands, and the Seoul International Chamber Music Festival, performing with artists such as Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, Julian Rachlin, Nino Gvetadze, Daniel Rowland, Nemanja Radulović, Frederieke Saeijs, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Marianna Shirinyan and Anna Fedorova. Maja has produced several internationally-released CDs for the Lyrinx and Nimbus labels and her recital disc ‘Eastern wind’ (Orchid Classics) with pianist Maria Belooussova, dedicated to Glière and Rachmaninoff, received rave reviews. Maja’s latest CD release (Challenge Records) with violinist Daniel Rowland, ‘Pas de deux’, includes world premiere recordings of works by Penderecki, Vasks, Sollima and Nisinman, and was described as ‘a magical meeting of cello and violin’ by leading Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad. Within her wide repertoire, Maja Bogdanović devotes a special place to contemporary music. She has premiered works of Nicolas Bacri, Sofia Gubaidulina, Krzysztof Penderecki, Philip Sawyers, Eric Tanguy, Benjamin Yusupov, Natasha Bogojević, Isidora Žebeljan and others.

Her collaboration with Krzysztof Penderecki began with the Belgrade Philharmonic in 2008, and with the Slovenian Philharmonic in Ljubljana, where she performed his Cello Concerto No. 2 under the baton of the composer. This led to several further collaborations, such as with the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, the Orchestra National des Pays de la Loire and the Krakow Philharmonic.

Floor LeCoultre
Named Young Musical Talent of the Netherlands in 2011, Floor Le Coultre graduated summa cum laude in 2014 as a student of Ilona Sie Dhian Ho, Pavel Vernikov, and Svetlana Makarova, receiving special distinction for her “compelling musicianship.” She is today one of the Netherlands’ most sought-after chamber musicians, admired for the refinement, imagination, and intensity of her playing. Floor has collaborated with a wide range of artists including Olli Mustonen, Nino Gvetadze, Daniel Rowland, Anna Fedorova, Barbara Hannigan, Chen Halevi, and David Krakauer. She is a frequent guest at leading festivals in the Netherlands and abroad, among them the Stift Festival, Aurora Festival, Delft Chamber Music Festival, Musique en Brionnais, Sylt Chamber Music Festival, Con Brio, and Ulverston International Music Festival. She has appeared on numerous acclaimed recordings for labels such as Alpha Classics, Challenge Records, Etcetera Records, and Phenotypic Recordings. As a soloist, Floor has performed with orchestras throughout the Netherlands, and since 2012 she has been a regular guest with ensembles including the New European Ensemble, LUDWIG, Esbjerg Ensemble (Denmark), and RCO Camerata. Alongside her performance career, Floor is on the faculty of the Davidsbündler Music Academy in The Hague and regularly gives masterclasses at festivals including Aurora, Stift Musical Encounters, and Cividale in Italy. In 2023 she co-founded the Arethusa Quartetwith Daniel Rowland, Dana Zemtsov, and Maja Bogdanović. Floor plays a Gant/Lupot violin from 1813.

Dana Zemtsov
is one of the most promising viola soloists of her generation. Dana regularly performs in concert halls such as the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, St. Petersburg Philharmonia, The Opera House in Tel Aviv, and Carnegie Hall in New York. She has played chamber music with Janine Jansen, Giovanni Sollima, Martin Fröst, Anna Fedorova, Ilya Gringolts, Boris Berezovsky, and many others. As a soloist, Dana has performed under the baton of Leif Segerstam, Otto Tausk, Daniel Raiskin, Massimo Quarta, Marco Parisotto, and Fabio Mechetti. Recent highlights include performances of various viola concertos with the Bath Festival Orchestra at the Southbank Centre in London, Orchestre National de Cannes, and Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin. Dana is 1st Prize laureate of several competitions in Luxembourg, Italy, Austria, Germany, Portugal, and the Netherlands. In 2010 she was awarded the Dutch Young Musician of the Year. She represented The Netherlands at the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition in Vienna. She has also been awarded the prestigious Kersjes Prize, granted every year to an outstanding young musician in the Netherlands. So far, Dana has released five critically acclaimed albums: ‘Enigma’ (solo, 2014), ‘Romantic Metamorphoses’ (with Cathelijne Noorland, 2015), ‘Essentia’ (with Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Daniel Raiskin, 2018), ‘Silhouettes’ (with pianist Anna Fedorova, 2020), ‘Dutch Hidden Gems’ (2022), and ‘Fathers & Daughters’ (with Anna Fedorova, Borys Fedorov and Mikhail Zemtsov, 2023), all on the Channel Classics Records label.

Booklet für Encounter