Program

PROGRAM:
G. F. Händel: The Messiah

MOGENS DAHL CHAMBER CHOIR
ORCHESTRA OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
MOGENS DAHL, CONDUCTOR

SOLISTS:
SOPRANO: DENISE BECK (DENMARK)
ALTO: JAKUB JÓZEF ORLINSKI (POLAND)
TENOR: JAMES WAY (ENGLAND)
BASS: GORDON BINTNER (CANADA)

PROGRAM:
G. F. Händel: The Messiah

MOGENS DAHL CHAMBER CHOIR
ORCHESTRA OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
MOGENS DAHL, CONDUCTOR

SOLISTS:
SOPRANO: DENISE BECK (DENMARK)
ALTO: JAKUB JÓZEF ORLINSKI (POLAND)
TENOR: JAMES WAY (ENGLAND)
BASS: GORDON BINTNER (CANADA)

Ronald Copes and Areta Zhulla, violin – Roger Tapping, viola – Astrid Schween, cello

Things move quickly for the 72-year old: Juilliard Quartet visited Mogens Dahl Concert Hall in 2018 with a new cellist, and now, on their eighth visit, there is yet another female addition to the world-famous Quartet. Areta Zhulla has studied at Juilliard School of Music and since September 2018 has been participating in the impressive touring activity of the quartet. “Playing with my colleagues has felt very special and just right from the very first moment,” she says about the honour of being admitted to this legendary ensemble. (“The Most Important American Quartet in History’”- Boston Globe.)

Soo-jin Hong – violin, Soo-kyung Hong – cello, Jens Elvekjær – piano

If there is a Danish ensemble we in Mogens Dahl Concert Hall have followed closely, it is the elegant and successful Trio con Brio Copenhagen, “Artist in Residence” with us in 2008 and 2009, now celebrating their 20th anniversary. The two Korean-born sisters and Danе Jens Elvekjær, who met in Vienna, have the power both to make individual careers and to attract international attention as an ensemble. They have been met by recognition and praise all over the world. For example, American Record Guide wrote “One of the greatest performances of chamber music I’ve ever encountered”.

Soo-jin Hong – violin, Soo-kyung Hong – cello, Jens Elvekjær – piano

The home address is, of course, Israel. But this quartet’s workplace often changes. With at least two annual US tours, performing, for example, in Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie or Theatre des Champs-Elysées, as well as tours to Russia, the Jerusalem Quartet has been commended as one of the greatest string quartets in the world. With a number of award-winning releases at Harmonia Mundi, the warmth and balanced sound of the ensemble have become a hallmark, whether we talk about new or old-time music.

Eight years ago, the then 22-year-old Lise de la Salle visited us for the first time. At that time she was recognised as “a talent in a million’”(The Gramophone) and we were looking forward to meeting an unstoppable piano phenomenon. Her reputation as an extreme virtuoso but also uniquely unfolded musical personality has only grown since then and it is not too much to say that she has been walking up the road to stardom from child to adult without betraying the nickname she received from the French newspaper Nice -Matin: “Fairy of the Keys”

Lise de la Salle has called her programme “Paris” after her beloved hometown, and explains why: “All the programme’s composers have lived in Paris for shorter or longer periods, and the city has influenced their lives and music in different ways. Mozart spent some of his most important years in the city and had a love-hate relationship with France and Paris. Ravel studied at Fauré at Conservatoire de Paris and the two Chopin ballads were composed in Paris.”

Tanja Zapolski and Rikke Sandberg, piano
International soloists

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897):
Ein Deutsches Requiem, op. 45.
Arrangement for soloists, choir and piano four hands by Phillip Moll

Brahms’s requiem in Phillip Moll’s version became an amazing experience for the audience at their first Danish performance in Holmen Church last year. The translucent and elegant version of the work is certainly worth repeating – the beginning of a new Easter tradition for the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir…

In 2017, the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir received permission from Rundfunkchor Berlin to use their new arrangement, written for choir and piano four hands. It has also been performed earlier with this crew – including by Brahms himself – but in recent years especially, there has been an increasing interest in exploring the requiem in a tender chamber music version where Brahms’s amazing work is revealed with great power by the choir’s voices

Ein Deutsches Requiem is performed with the two outstanding Danish pianists Rikke Sandberg and Tanja Zapolski, and with soloists at the highest international level.

Contributors:
Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir
Rikke Sandberg, pianist
Tanja Zapolski, pianist
Mogens Dahl, conductor

Brahms’s Liebeslieder have had a very special significance for Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir. When the professional vocal ensemble was founded in 2005, founder and conductor Mogens Dahl first wanted the lifelong love for Brahms’s romantic music to the intense Eastern European love poems to come to life. The music was released on CD in 2007.

Now, 14 years later, when Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir has developed into an international company with a series of performances of major works dedicated to the choir in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany, the founder has felt an urge to re-visit the beautiful songs of ill-fated love…