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Schoenberg Variations

Artist Evgeny Irshai
Title Schoenberg Variations
Release Date Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Genre Classical > Piano Concerto
Composer Evgeny Irshai
Songwriter Evgeny Irshai
Copyright © PAVLIK RECORDS
Country SLOVAKIA

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pianist and composer Evgeny Irshai (new CD)

j e v g e n i j i r š a i (1 9 5 1) Evgeny Irshai studied composition and piano at the Special Music School (1958-1969) and at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory (1969-1978) in St. Petersburg. He has been living in Slovakia since 1991. He lectures composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He is a laureate of various international competitions and was awarded different prizes, such as Jan Levoslav Bella award (2000) and Dezider Zador award (2008, Ukraine). Irshai`s music is characteristic by his sense for dramatic composition and his ability to develop minimal musical material but reaching maximal effect. His concert and chamber compositions have been successfully performed in many European countries as well as in the USA. Many soloists and chamber musicians ask the author for composing directly for them and are honored to include his compositions to their repertoire. The pieces recorded on this CD show, on one side, the author – mature and reputable composer writing music with a great artistic utterance and on the other side young violinist with rich performing experience whose talent combined with brilliant technical skills and especially his exceptional feeling for Irshai`s music make a wonderful symbiosis of a composer and a performer. “My father was an excellent violinist and a remarkable musician. He is still alive but he does not play anymore – that is why I say – he was. He is now 88. I am truly grateful for many things to him. Firstly, I am thankful for my talents, for his precious advices concerning music, for my nature (?) and also for the love towards music and in some sense towards violin too. Although without meeting Milan Paľa I may not have composed so intently for this instrument – so exceptional in real master’s hands. Sometime in 1999 my good friend – organist Martin Kovarik suggested I should go to graduate concert of Milan Paľa. I went but I confess I was a little skeptic. After a first few notes I knew I was looking at a great talent. I congratulated Milan after the concert and he asked me to compose a piece for him. So, after a couple of months I brought him Omni tempore and this was the beginning of our long-lasting friendship and cooperation. Every piece Milan recorded on this CD, maybe apart of the one I composed while studying in St. Petersburg, were composed for him. I remember how In memoriam came into existence. We were giving a concert at Musical Autumn festival in Banska Bystrica that was organized by Zuzana Martinakova. A day before actual performance we found out that we need one more piece. Milan simply told me to go home and write for him something short – for about eight minutes. So I went home and did as he had said. I called it Trills for A. In about a year I rewrote it a little and renamed for In memoriam. Then again, in 2004, Milan asked me to compose for him a 20 minute piece – maximally complicated and masterful - to perform it at international competition in Riga, Latvia. What could I do? I composed Ex foedere. Roughly a year ago Milan asked for a new composition. I had no idea what it could be so I asked him to which he replied – anything! So I composed “Whatever”, which in Slovak tran- scription makes the title of the piece, Vodever. The word Pimpampuntshi comes from Flemish and means ladybird. It is a cycle of six short compositions for solo violin framed in a way that each of them is played separately, at the end of a concert as an addition and was called ladybird in different languages. Ниоткуда с любовью... (From nowhere with love) is a beginning of a great poem by fantastic Russian poet Joseph Brodsky that was written shortly after he went to exile in the US. Except the compositions for violin solo recorded by Milan on this CD, I have composed two sonatas for violin and piano, concert for violin, piano and orchestra In the Space of Love, concert for violin, violoncello and orchestra Uangamizi, concert for violin and orchestra Ashira Songs and concert for vio

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