CONCERT & RECITAL SERIES
Cristo Barrios (clarinet)
& Elias String Quartet
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
The Shoe Factory, 304 Ermou, Nicosia / 8.30pm
(Limited Seating, Pre-booking essential)
The Pharos
Arts Foundation presents a concert with the Spanish clarinettist Cristo
Barrios, described by UK's International Record Review as “an alert,
sensitive player who knows how to make new audiences for his instrument”,
and the Elias String Quartet, described by Gramophone as “an outstanding
quartet”. The concert will include Britten's Three Divertimenti and
Schumann's String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, as well as the world-premiere of
a new work for clarinet and string quartet by the Cypriot composer and
conductor Christina Athinodorou, whose works have been by NuovaSesto
Periodico as “looking back at her tradition to trace, through music, the
path of her homeland, Cyprus, transporting the audience to a Mediterranean
aura with an exotic taste.” The concert will take place at The Shoe Factory,
on Wednesday, 24 November 2010.
Cristo Barrios / clarinet
“There is lots of lovely, even cozy, deliquescent melody around. Cristo
Barrios ....”There is no shortage of beautiful moments, and even surprises.”
(International Record Review Magazine – 2007)
Cristo Barrios was awarded a first-class degree in clarinet from the
Tenerife Conservatory and a postgraduate scholarship to study at the Royal
Academy of Music in 1999. In 2000, he went on to win the Yamaha Music
Foundation of Europe Scholarship, held at St John’s Smith Square. His
teachers have included Joan Enric Lluna and Richard Stoltzman.
A top prize-winner of major international music competitions, Cristo Barrios
has toured extensively throughout Europe and performed with some of the most
distinguished chamber ensembles. His recent chamber music partners have
included Rolf Hind, Andrew West, Philip Moore, Llyr Williams, the Endellion
String Quartet, the Brodsky String Quartet and the Arditti String Quartet.
Barrios is first prize winner and gold medallist of the Primer Palau
Competition of the Palau de la Música Hall in Barcelona. In 2003, he won
first prize at the CHAIN Concours Moderne in Riga, which led to concert
tours in Europe. He has also won prizes in the Young Musicians International
Competition in Badajoz, the Guadamora International Chamber Music
Competition, the Haverhill Sinfonia Soloist Competition in London and the
Anglo-Czechoslovak London Music Competition.
As recitalist and chamber musician, Cristo has performed in Europe and in
the United States. Most recent highlights include his appearance at the
Palau de la Música, Barcelona, St John’s Smith Square and Wigmore Hall in
London and at Carnegie Hall, New York. He has also performed at festivals
such as Torroella de Montgrí, Langvad, Llangollen or Sant Pere de Rodes,
among others. Cristo’s engagements as soloist have taken him to Poland, the
Czech Republic, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Latvia, Denmark,
Portugal and the United States. Many of his performances have been broadcast
on radio and television, including the BBC, Spanish National Radio, New
Zeland Radio and S4C.
Cristo Barrios is a musician with a keen interest in contemporary music.
This enthusiasm has been expressed in his recent première of Cantus Firmus
by Blai Soler at the Wigmore Hall and in his performances of works by
numerous contemporary composers, including Javier Ruiz (Trois Minutes for
violin, clarinet and piano), Tom Johnson (Tilework Series for solo
clarinet), Juan Manuel Ruiz (Bentayga for clarinet and piano), Juan Manuel
Marrero (Insolence for clarinet and piano), Raquel Cristobal (Sonata for
clarinet and piano), Gustavo Trujillo (Lamento del Alba), Gustavo Díaz Jerez
(Three Pieces for clarinet and piano), Manuel Bonino (Metaimpromptu I).
His first CD with chamber works by Joaquim Homs was released on Naxos to
exceptional reviews, and he has recently recorded an innovative disc of
songs transcribed for clarinet and piano entitled The Voice of the Clarinet
(for Divine Art Records). Other recording projects include the release of a
CD with works for clarinet and piano by Salonen, Bernstein, Bax, Berg,
Brotons and Honneger (Metier Records) and the CD Composers of the XXI
Century in the Canary Islands (RALS). In 2009, Barrios recorded a new CD
with the Grupo Enigma, premièring a new piece by Blai Soler for solo
clarinet and ensemble.
Elias String Quartet
Sara Bitlloch (violin), Donald Grant (violin), Martin Saving (viola), Marie
Bitlloch (cello)
The members of the Elias String Quartet all live in England but are
originally from France, Scotland and Sweden. The Quartet was formed in 1998
at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where they worked
regularly with the late Dr. Christopher Rowland. They also spent a year
studying at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet. Other
mentors in the Quartet’s studies have included members of the Amadeus,
Endellion and Vermeer Quartets, Hugh Maguire, György Kurtág, Gábor Takács-Nagy,
Henri Dutilleux, Paul Katz, Rainer Schmidt, Kim Kashkashian and Milan Skampa.
The Quartet received the second prize and the Sidney Griller prize at the
9th London International String Quartet Competition in 2003 and were
finalists in the Paolo Borciani Competition in 2005. They have appeared
extensively in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Australia
and the USA, in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Snape
Maltings Concert Hall, Kettle’s Yard, Bridgewater Hall, Fairfield Halls,
Stockholm Concert Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre-Paris, and Jordan Hall,
Boston, and have broadcast live on National Radio in the UK, France,
Australia and Sweden. They look forward to a residency at the Wigmore Hall,
London, beginning in October 2009. They have performed alongside artists
such as Andrew Marriner, Ralph Kirshbaum, Joan Rogers, Mark Padmore, Roger
Vignoles, Michel Dalberto, Peter Cropper, Bernard Gregor-Smith, Robin
Ireland, Adrian Brendel, Anthony Marwood and with the Endellion, Navarra and
Vertavo Quartets.
In 2005, the Elias String Quartet were appointed resident String Quartet at
Sheffield’s Music in the Round as part of the Ensemble 360, taking over from
the Lindsay Quartet. The Ensemble has a series at the Wigmore Hall and
released discs of Mozart’s, Beethoven’s and Spohr’s chamber music with
Sanctuary Classics and Nimbus.
The Quartet has released a disc of Mendelssohn Quartets with Sanctuary
Classics, a disc of French harp music with harpist Sandrine Chatron for the
French label Ambroisie, Goehr’s Piano Quintet for Meridian Records, and a
recent CD on the Wigmore Live label. The Elias String Quartet have been
recently selected to join BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme.
Forthcoming projects include the release of a CD with quartets by Benjamin
Britten and concerts at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall, New
York
Christina Athinodorou / composer
The work of the composer and conductor Christina Athinodorou has been
described as “rich”, “intensively interpreted”, and “engaging” by
international press.
Christina Athinodorou was born in Paphos in 1981. She graduated from the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London (composition with Julian
Philips and conducting with Alan Hazeldine) obtaining BMus and MMus degrees.
She has also studied orchestration, piano and composition at the
Conservatoire National Supèrieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon, France (with
Robert Pascal, Denis Lorrain and Olivier Kaspar) and at the University of
North Texas at Denton, U.S. (Joseph Klein, Nikita Fitenko).
Her compositions have been presented in various classical and contemporary
music festivals, concert series and venues, including: MITO Settembre Musica
Festival 2008, Italia Classic-Wave Florence 2007, Festival Spaziomusica
Cagliari 2008, Musica Nuova per Natale 2006, Teatro dal Verme Milano, Spazio
MIL (Italy), Festival Forfest 2006 (Czech Republic), Young Rising Artists’
Series 2008 (Cyprus) Labyrinthmaker Project (tour in twelve countries),
Viitasaari Musiikin Aika Festival 2008, New Music Festival PeriFÈRIA 2009
(Finland), St Giles’ Cripplegate, Henry Wood Hall, The Warehouse London,
Dartington Hall, EKON Festival, Reading Concert Hall, Hellenic Centre,
Lauderdale House, Notting Hill MayfFest 2009, British Music Information
Centre ‘New Music Mart’ 2008, London Contemporary Dance School (U.K.), Small
Music Theatre Athens, 21st Century Greek Music for Guitar Project (Greece),
Kulturhaus Lüdenscheid, Düsseldorfer Tonhalle (Germany), Kanagawa Art Hall
(Japan), Chamber Concert Series of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra
2009 (Belgium).
Athinodorou's music has been performed by notable performers such as the
Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien (Simul: Lumini, Sombri for clarinet, cello and
piano), Ensemble Sentieri Selvaggi (Aktaí for chamber ensemble), Aldworth
Philharmonic Orchestra (Reverse Rivers’ Images of Euboea for Symphony
Orchestra, Naked Branches I for String Orchestra), St Albans Symphony
Orchestra/City of London Sinfonia (Overture for the Red Rain for Symphony
Orchestra), Jyväskylä Sinfonia Finlandia (Quatre Silences for Chamber
Orchestra), Borealis Brass Ensemble (Cantus Cyprius for Brass Octet),
Endymion Ensemble with Stephen Gutman and Richard Benjafield (Midnight
Pulses II for chamber three clarinets, piano and percussion), Athens Trio
(The Veil of Tears for string trio), Connecting Arts (Iniochos for Symphonic
Brass Ensemble), Guildhall Percussion Ensemble (Sword Dance for Six
Percussionists), trumpet player Paul Archibald, Contemporary Consort,
Okeanos Ensemble, Timo Kinnunen (Virgules for Solo Accordion), oboist Piet
Van Bockstal, Cyprus Symphony Orchestra (Black Circles for Orchestra). She
has also collaborated with a number of distinguished artists, amongst
others, violinist Alda Dizdari (Aosmon for solo violin), members of the
Liquid Architecture Chamber Ensemble, choreographer Jamie Boylan (In Vein,
for vocalist, chamber ensemble and six dancers), Duo Disecheis (Saxum for
Alto-Saxophone and Piano) and clarinettist Mikko Raasakka.
Her distinctions include the Aristotle University Chamber Music Composition
Prize, the Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers’ Award which led
to three commissions and performances in the UK during the years 2006-7
(with the composer conducting), various scholarships and more recently the
Second ‘Premio GERMI’(Rome 2009).
Christina Athinodorou is also active as a conductor. She has given first
performances of her own music, more notably her one-act Opera and her
orchestral works, as well as music by other composers, leading various
professional and amateur ensembles and orchestras. Recently she participated
as a conductor in the International MasterCourse for Conductors and
Composers at the Herrenhaus-Edenkoben Germany with Peter Eötvös and Zsolt
Nagy and the musicians from the International Ensemble Modern Akademie
Frankfurt 2009 with whom she recorded for broadcast on the SWR.
She is currently studying towards a doctoral degree in Composition under the
supervision of Dr Michael Zev Gordon at the Royal Holloway University of
London where she also teaches undergraduate students, and is a
Resident-Composer at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
Programme:
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Three Divertimenti
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 41
interval
Christina Athinodorou (b. 1981)
A new work for clarinet quintet World-premiere Ticket Prices:
Adults: EUR22
Friends and Supporters of the Pharos Arts Foundation / Concessions: EUR17
Click
here to purchase your tickets online or telephone 7000 9304
