Patricia Kopatchinskaja & Sol Gabetta
Biography Patricia Kopatchinskaja & Sol Gabetta
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
With a combination of depth, brilliance and humour, Kopatchinskaja brings an inimitable sense of theatrics to her music. Whether performing a violin concerto by Tchaikovsky, Ligeti or Schoenberg or presenting an original staged project deconstructing Beethoven, Ustwolskaja or Cage, her distinctive approach always conveys the core of the work.
Highlights of the 2020/21 season included a residency with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, performing Shostakovich with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Fesival d’Aix-en-Provence, Bamberg Symphony, and SWR Symphony Orchestra. Kopatchinskaja brought her own unique creativity to these residencies, performing Pierrot Lunaire and her project Dies Irae to great acclaim. Another highlight of the season was her debut at the BBC Proms, performing Bartók with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ilan Volkov, which received a 5* review from The Times (as did her Edinburgh Festival recital with Joonas Ahonen). Kopatchinskaja also gave recitals in venues across Europe such as Wiener Konzerthaus, DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen, Liszt Academy of Music, Passau Festival, DeDoelen in Rotterdam, and Gstaad Festival, performing with regular recital partners Joonas Ahonen, Polina Leschenko and Fazil Say.
The forthcoming 2021/22 season features engagements with top level orchestras including residencies with Berlin Philharmoniker and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a tour with Budapest Festival Orchestra, appearances with Toronto Symphony with Gustavo Gimeno, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, and her continued residency as Artistic Partner with Camerata Bern.
Kopatchinskaja will continue to showcase the works of living composers such as Luca Francesconi, Michael Hersch, György Kurtág and Márton Illés in her varied and innovative curated projects like Bye Bye Beethoven, and her video recording of Kurt Schwitters’ surreal Dadaist poem Ursonate.
Kopatchinskaja’s other projects explore music staged through contemporary contexts, such as Dies Irae, a musical reflection on the the growing environmental crisis. She brings this production to Glasgow in November 2021 with RSNO to coincide with the global COP26 summit.
CD releases in the 2020/21 season included Les Plaisirs Illuminés with Sol Gabetta and Camerata Bern (Alpha Classics), which was nominated for a Gramophone Magazine award, and Francisco Coll’s Violin Concerto with Orchestra Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Gustavo Gimeno (Pentatone). Kopatchinskaja and Gabetta will tour Europe in autumn of 2021 to mark the release of their forthcoming duos album (Alpha Classics). Kopatchinskaja’s Vivaldi project with Il Giardino Armonico, “What’s Next Vivaldi?” featuring new works by living composers, was released on disc in summer 2020 on Alpha Classics and received an Opus Klassik award in autumn 2021. In 2018 she won a Grammy Award in the Best Chamber and Small Ensemble Performance category for Death and the Maiden with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Alpha). In 2021 this project was reborn as a semi-staged filmed performance with Camerata Bern, premiered on HarrisonParrott’s digital platform Virtual Circle.
Kopatchinskaja held the position of Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra from 2014 – 2018, and is a humanitarian ambassador for Terre des Hommes, the leading Swiss child relief agency. She was awarded the Swiss Grand Award for Music by the Federal Office of Culture for Switzerland in 2017 and has held positions as Artist in Residence at various festivals including Lucerne (2017) and Ojai (2018).
Sol Gabetta
Following her residencies with Staatskapelle Dresden and Bamberg Symphony last season and her appearance at the Concert de Paris from the Bastille with Orchestre National de France, Sol Gabetta opened this season in concerts with Münchner Philharmoniker and Valery Gergiev.
Other highlights this season include another set of live performances with Bamberger Symphoniker as well as digitally streamed concerts with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Klaus Mäkelä, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Elim Chan and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under the baton of Dima Slobendiuk.
A respected advocate for lesser-known works, the Argentina-born cellist collaborates with Klaus Mäkelä and Deutsche Symphony Orchestra Berlin later this season illuminating Weinberg’s Cello Concerto. Last season saw the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Wolfgang Rihm, Concerto en Sol, which the composer dedicated to her.
A sought-after guest artist at leading festivals, Sol Gabetta was Artiste étoile at Lucerne Festival where she appeared with Wiener Philharmoniker and Franz Welser-Möst, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Francois-Xavier Roth and the London Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Marin Alsop. She continues drawing inspiration from a wide circle of collaborators and musical encounters at the Solsberg Festival, which flourishes under her commited artistic direction.
Chamber music is at the core of Gabetta’s work, visible in her upcoming recitals with Alexei Volodin in Paris and Switzerland, her upcoming tour with her longtime recital partner Bertrand Chamayou through Italy, Germany, France and Spain and her recent appearances with Kristian Bezuidenhout at the opening fest of the Schleswig Holstein Musikfestival and Alexander Melnikov at Gstaad Festival. In the past, chamber music performances led her to venues such as New York’s Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall in London, Lucerne, Verbier, Salzburg, Schwetzingen and Rheingau festivals, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and Beethovenfest Bonn.
In recognition of her exceptional artistic achievements, Sol Gabetta was honoured with the Herbert von Karajan Prize at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2018 where she appeared as soloist with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann. In 2019 she was awarded the first OPUS Klassik Award as Instrumentalist of the Year for her interpretation of Schumann’s Cello Concerto. The ECHO Klassik award saluted her accomplishment biennially between 2007 and 2013, and also in 2016.
A Grammy Award nominee, she also received the Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award in 2010 and the Würth-Preis of the Jeunesses Musicales in 2012 as well as commendations at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. She continues to build her extensive discography with SONY Classical, the most recent releases being a recording of late Schumann works and a live recording of the cello concertos by Elgar and Martinů with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle / Krzysztof Urbański.
In 2017, Gabetta joined forces with Cecilia Bartoli on an extensive tour throughout Europe showcasing their album Dolce Duello, released on Decca Classics.
Sol Gabetta performs on several Italian master instruments from the early 18th century, including a cello by Matteo Goffriller from 1730, Venice, provided to her by Atelier Cels Paris, and since 2020, the famous “Bonamy Dobree-Suggia” by Antonio Stradivarius from 1717, on generous loan from the Stradivari Foundation Habisreutinger. She has been teaching at the Basel Music Academy since 2005.
