From 11 to 13 November, five talented musicians will perform at Müpa Budapest, under the auspices of the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO), the most prestigious performing arts organisation in Europe, guaranteeing some truly stunning performances in the concert halls.
The ECHO launched the Rising Stars series in 1995 to give a helping hand to emerging young talents in the competitive, globalised world of classical music, who can showcase their talents to the public on a tour of almost every major concert hall in Europe. What's more, each of the musicians will perform a brand new contemporary composition commissioned by the ECHO. A special feature of this year's series is that the ECHO will be taking the musicians whose concerts were cancelled two years ago by the pandemic on a European tour.
One of this year's most flamboyant performers, German percussionist Vanessa Porter, delegated by the Kölner Philharmonie and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, who always favours unorthodox solutions, will open the show.
In her performances, she likes to use exotic instruments, including her own body, and combines her improvisations with human voices and electronic effects. This time, Daniel Mudrack will help her with the latter. Her programme is full of exciting contemporary compositions, including The Messenger by Georges Aperghis, commissioned by the ECHO for a Persian percussion instrument, the zarb (also known as tonbak) and speech sound, and Porter's own composition Folie.
The next artist, James Newby stands out a bit, as his instrument is his own voice. In spite of his young age, the Barbican Centre nominee from London, James Newby has gained many professional achievements, including third place in the 2015 Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition, where he won the Richard Tauber Prize for the Best Interpretation of Schubert Lieder, and currently a BBC New Generation Artist and member of Staatsoper Hannover.
With his pianist partner Joseph Middleton, he will perform Schumann's rarely heard Kerner Lieder and 70-year-old British composer Judith Bingham's song cycle inspired by the pandemic.
Saturday will close with the performance of Spanish oboist Cristina Gómez Godoy, delegated by L'Auditori Barcelona and the Palau de la Música Catalana, whose “miraculously effortless instinctiveness” was praised by the Süddeutsche Zeitung a few years ago.
She was barely 21 when she became principal oboist of the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim, but has also appeared at Carnegie Hall and Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and has worked with legendary conductors such as Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, and Zubin Mehta. In addition to Charlotte Bray's new work, she will be coming to Müpa Budapest with some of the most outstanding oboe pieces of the 19th and 20th centuries, accompanied by pianist Mario Häring.
There will be plenty to see and hear on Sunday, as well: the Frankfurt-based Aris Quartet attracted attention by winning five prizes at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 2016, and two years later they were named BBC New Generation Artist.
As the joint nominee of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Konzerthaus Dortmund, they plan to treat us to Japanese Misato Mochizuki's new composition in-side, as well as works by the Viennese classical Haydn and the romantic Mendelssohn.
Diana Tishchenko, one of the outstanding string talents of recent years, will conclude the concert series. The Ukrainian violinist, who studied in Berlin, was appointed concertmaster of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra at the age of 20 and has won first prizes at prestigious music competitions such as the ARD International Music Competition and the Long-Thibaud-Crespin International Music Competition.
The Hungarian audience will be particularly pleased that for this evening, she has chosen to partner with Hungarian virtuoso pianist Zoltán Fejérvári, with whom he has already recorded several albums. In addition to pieces by Bartók and Beethoven, she will also perform a piece for solo violin by Alfred Schnittke and a new work by Portuguese contemporary composer Vasco Mendonça.
Click here for a detailed programme of the Rising Stars series.
