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, whose
performances are described by The Sunday Telegraph as “Marvellous
playing….poetic, charismatic, virtuosic”.
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 described 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.”
Programme:
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Three Divertimenti (1933)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 41 (1842)
interval
Christina Athinodorou (b. 1981)
STERNA for clarinet quintet World premiere
Cristo Barrios / clarinet
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 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 and the USA. 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 Barrios has appeared in renowned
venues such as 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. 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 have received a residency at the Wigmore Hall, 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 (b.1981,
Cyprus) has been described by international press as “rich”, “intensively
interpreted”, “engaging”. Upon completion of her music studies in the UK and
France, she pursues a burgeoning career as a composer-conductor developing a
varied list of compositions and a wide repertoire with a particular interest
in 20th century and contemporary music.
Her compositions have been presented in many festivals around the world,
MITO Settembre Musica Festival 2008, Italia Classic-Wave Florence 2007,
Spaziomusica 2008, Musica Nuova per Natale 2006, Teatro dal Verme Milano
(Italy), Festival Forfest 2006 (Czech Republic), Labyrinthmaker Project
(tour in twelve countries during 2006-07),Düsseldorfer Tonhalle, Musikclub
Konzerthaus Berlin (Germany), Young Rising Artists’ Series 2008 (Cyprus),
Musiikin Aika Festival 2008, Festival PeriFÈRIA 2009 (Finland), the Reading
and Dartington Halls, The Warehouse London, (U.K.), Kanagawa Art Hall
(Japan), Salle Edmont Michelet (France), Chamber Concert Series of the Royal
Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra 2009 (Belgium) and elsewhere.
She has collaborated with notable performers such as: Pierrot Lunaire
Ensemble Wien (Simul: Lumini, Sombri), Ensemble Sentieri Selvaggi (Aktaí),
Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra (Reverse Rivers’Images of Euboea’ for
Symphony Orchestra, Naked Branches I and Sword Dance), St Albans Symphony
Orchestra/City of London Sinfonia (Overture for the Red Rain), Jyväskylä
Sinfonia Finlandia (Quatre Silences), Cyprus Symphony Orchestra (Black
Circles), Duo Disecheis (Saxum), Borealis Brass Ensemble (Cantus Cyprius),
Endymion Ensemble with Stephen Gutman and Richard Benjafield (Midnight
Pulses II), choreographer Jamie Boylan (In Vein), accordionist Timo Kinnunen
(Virgules), oboist Piet Van Bockstal (Nyktoporia), violinist Alda Dizdari (Aosmon),
clarinettist Cristo Barrios (Pyrophane, recently premiered at the Festival
de Música Contemporánea Keroxen10 of Tenerife), guitarist Nikos Zarkos
(Wasted Window, included in the CD recording “Greek Guitar Music of the 21st
Century” to be released in November 2010), clarinettist Mikko Raasakka,
Camerata Europaea and others.
As a conductor, she has led various ensembles and orchestras including the
St Albans Symphony Orchestra/City of London Sinfonia, Jyväskylä Sinfonia
Finlandia, Guildhall Percussion and New Music Society Ensembles, Aldworth
Philarmonic Orchestra and others. Aided by the Solti Foundation she
completed the International MasterCourse for Conductors at
Herenhaus-Edenkoben with Peter Eötvös, Zsolt Nagy and the International
Ensemble Modern Akademie Frankfurt 2009 with whom she has recorded for
broadcast on the SWR. Recently, she worked in Masterclass with Jorma Panula
and the Orquestra Nacional do Porto with whom she performed in Casa da
Música in 2010. Apart from music by other composers, she often conducts her
own works. Highlights have included her one-act Opera Ita Vivam which was
commissioned by the, and her orchestral works in the UK and Finland. She has
also appeared in concerts with the Southampton Wind Orchestra, the Royal
Holloway Sinfonietta and other ensembles at the Notting Hill MayFest,
Musiikin Aika Viitasaari 2008, The Place (London Contemporary Dance School
2008) and elsewhere.
Christina graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London,
where she studied composition and conducting with Julian Philips and Alan
Hazeldine respectively (BMus and MMus). She has also taken orchestration,
piano and composition courses 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). Supported by a number of grants, she is currently
completing her PhD in Composition under the supervision of Dr Michael Zev
Gordon at the Royal Holloway University of London where she has previously
taught undergraduate students. Her distinctions include the Aristotle
University Chamber Music Composition Prize (Thessaloniki 2005), the Aldworth
Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers’ Award (U.K 2006-7) which led to
three commissions and performances with the composer conducting, the Second
‘Premio GERMI’ (Rome 2009), and various scholarships.
Supported by a grant from the Cyprus Ministry of Culture, Christina recently
completed her Artist Residency (2009-10) at the Cité Internationale des Arts
in Paris. For more information: www.athinodorou.com
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
