Home     Print

 LV    RU    EN  

Concert cycles

European Union Youth Orchestra

 

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Second International Music Festival

SUMMERTIME – INESSA GALANTE & FRIENDS

 

European Union  Youth Orchestra

 

Vladimir Ashkenazi, conductor

Soloist Janine Jansen (violin)

Program: Mozart – Violin Concerto No 5, Mahler – Symphony No 5

    

The European Union Youth Orchestra unites Europe’s most talented young musicians under some of the world’s most famous conductors, in an orchestra which transcends cultural boundaries and performs all over the world to the highest international standards. The extremely high standards demanded of the players, combined with the incredible musical leadership of its conductors has won the EUYO an outstanding musical reputation, and regular comparisons with the world’s finest orchestras.

This orchestra has an outstanding reputation for excellence and for fostering a new kind of creative co-operation across borders with all the energy and potential that brings. 

Josep Borrell Fontelles, President of the European Parliament and Honorary President of the EUYO,

The EUYO was founded in 1978 by Lionel and Joy Bryer, Chairman and Secretary General of the International Youth Foundation, with a view to creating an Orchestra which would represent the European ideal of a community working together to achieve peace and social understanding. Maestro Claudio Abbado, the Orchestra’s Founding Music Director and the first President, the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Heath KG MBE helped to establish the Orchestra as a world-class institution. Abbado donated much of his valuable time to conducting and touring with the young musicians - a role which Bernard Haitink KBE succeeded in and which is now held by Vladimir Ashkenazy. 

In addition to the EUYO’s Music Directors, world famous guest conductors have included Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein, James Conlon, Sir Colin Davis, Carlo Maria Giulini, Herbert von Karajan, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Sir Georg Solti KBE.  Notable soloists have who have worked with the EUYO include Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Teresa Berganza, Kyung Wha Chung, Barbara Hendricks, Nigel Kennedy, Radu Lupu, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Jessye Norman, Murray Perahia, and Ravi Shankar.

The Orchestra is made up of up to 140 players representing all 25 member countries of the European Union. The players are selected each year from over 4,000 candidates aged between 14 and 24, who take part in auditions throughout the EU. The competition is such that members of the orchestra have to re-audition along with new applicants each year in order to keep their places.

Once the members have been selected for the year, they are invited to join the Orchestra to rehearse and perform major works by composers including Mahler, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Beethoven, and Strauss, as well as contemporary repertoire which has, in the past, included works by Andrew March, Erkki-Sven Tur, Arturs Maskats, Vytautas, on international stages all over the world.

Since its inaugural tour, the orchestra has gone from strength to strength and continues to attract incredibly gifted players and world class conductors, performing to full houses in all the major cities, concert halls, and festivals of Europe, as well as undertaking important foreign tours to destinations which have included China, Hong Kong, Japan, India, North and South America, Russia and the Baltic States.  

Most recently, the members of the 2005 EUYO came together for the incredibly successful Summer 2005 Tour. They began by taking up a period of rehearsal residency at  the brand new Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal with Bernard Haitink. Here they performed Mahler Symphony No.7, before touring it to Amsterdam, Berlin and Bolzano. The Orchestra then took up a second residency in Bolzano with John Eliot Gardiner to rehearse and perform a new programme including William Walton’s 1st Symphony, before touring to Cork, Amsterdam and London.

2006 will see the EUYO performing under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy with violinists Ryu Goto and Janine Janssen; taking up residencies in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany, home of Richard Strauss, and Bolzano, Italy; and touring to major cities all over Europe, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Salzburg, Munich, London, Copenhagen, Interlaken and Jurmala.

The unique experience the EUYO provides for its young musicians is not only socially stimulating and culturally enlightening, but is invaluable to their future careers. The Orchestra acts as a training ground, bridging the gap between music colleges and the professional music world. Most EUYO players go on to become professional musicians, and many have found jobs with Europe's leading orchestras.

In recognition of the Orchestra’s achievements prizes awarded to it include the Olympia Prize of the Alexander S Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, the ‘Prix d'Initiative Européenne’, the Grant for Young Artists awarded by The Praemium Imperiale and the ‘European Media Prize’.

 

‘I absolutely love working with this orchestra – they are young and vibrant and enthusiastic, but at the same time entirely professional. Taking the rostrum with the EUYO is a very rewarding experience’

Maestro Vladimir Ashkenazy

 

 

Janine Jansen’s London debut in November 2002, accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, attracted immediate worldwide attention. A few months before she worked for the third time with Valery Gergiev who invited her to the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg in June 2003. In February 2003 she signed an exclusive recording contract with the Decca Music Group, and her first album received great critical acclaim, including a Five Star review in BBC Music Magazine. Her second Decca disc is due for international release in mid-2005, and will include Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

Janine Jansen took up the violin at the age of six, and made her concert debut aged ten. Her first lessons were from Coosje Wijzenbeek, then Philipp Hirshhorn at the Conservatory of Utrecht. Following her graduation (cum laude) she studied with Boris Belkin. Her debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 1997 resulted in an immediate re-invitation, as well as invitations from all over Europe. In the spring of 2000 she made her Japanese debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev, who re-invited her personally for a performance of the Tchaikovsky Concerto with his Kirov Orchestra. The same year she made her South American debut in the famous Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires.

Janine Jansen quickly gained the reputation of one of the foremost young violinists on the international concert stages, performing in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Brussels Philharmonic Society, the Cologne and Berlin Philharmonie, the Cité de la Musique, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall in New York, and in London, the Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms. She was a BBC New Generation Artist for the 2002/03 and 2003/04 seasons. Her concert schedule regularly includes orchestras such as the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, The Hague Residentie Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Belgium, Berlin Radio, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé, the BBC Orchestras and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Conductors Janine Jansen has worked with include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Frans Brüggen, Mikko Franck, Valery Gergiev, Gianandrea Noseda, Sakari Oramo, Evgenii Svetlanov, Hans Vonk and Jaap van Zweden.

Since 1998 Janine has been a member of Spectrum Concerts Berlin, an important chamber music series in the Berlin Philharmonie. Her partners at various festivals and on other occasions have included Itamar Golan, Mischa Maisky, Paul Meyer, Truls M¸rk, Christian Poltéra, Menahem Pressler, Julian Rachlin and Kathryn Stott. Janine is artistic leader of the International Chamber Music Festival in Utrecht, which had its first very successful edition in December 2003. In September 2004, through votes from the Dutch public via internet, telephone and voting forms, she received the Edison Classic Public Award 2004 for her debut album on Decca. The Award was given to her at a celebration concert at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and the entire event was broadcast live on national television. In September 2003 she received the Dutch Music Prize from the Ministry of Culture – the highest distinction an artist can receive in The Netherlands.

The outstanding instrument being used by Janine Jansen is the violin by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1727, ‘Barrere’ on extended loan through intermediation of The Stradivari Society® of Chicago and the Elise Mathilde Fund. The Stradivari Society® is a unique organization that supports the very highest level of string playing by assisting Patrons who own the most precious antique Italian instruments and choose to make them available to artists of exceptional talent and ability.

 


Concert takes place:

Date, time, place

Concert

Ticket prices

15.08.2006  19:00
Dzintari Concert Hall

European Union Youth Orchestra

Vladimir Ashkenazi, conductor, Soloist Janine Jansen (violin)

Program: Mozart – Violin Concerto No 5, Mahler – Symphony No 5

 

View your order history
Your email:

© Herman Braun Foundation | Site created by Profero, 2002-2011