ARTIST PROFILE
Milan Turkovic, David Shifrin and Shai Wosner
SAINT PAUL SUNDAY APPEARANCES
BIOGRAPHY
The San Francisco Chronicle calls the playing of clarinetist DAVID SHIFRIN, "a revelation in just how beautifully the clarinet can be played." Highlights of the 2004-2005 season include performances of the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Daejon Philharmonic in Korea and the Detroit Symphony, as well as chamber music appearances in Japan, Chicago, and New York. Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society from 1992 to 2004, Mr. Shifrin will be joined by fellow CMS Artist Members in May of 2005 at Alice Tully Hall to give the premiere of a new work by Lalo Schifrin. This past season included re-engagements with orchestras throughout the U.S., a debut with the Taipei Symphony in Taiwan, duo recitals with pianist Andre-Michel Schub, chamber music performances with artists such as the Emerson String Quartet and pianist Andre Watts, and an appearance at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall with pianist Emmanuel Ax. Mr. Shifrin has served as principal clarinetist with the American Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, amongst others. His recordings continue to garner praise, as well as awards. He has received three Grammy nominations, and his recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review. In 2000 Mr. Shifrin won the Avery Fisher Prize and is the recipient of a Solo Recitalists Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Since 1981, Mr. Shifrin has been Artistic Director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, OR. He is currently a professor of music at Yale University.
Bassoonist MILAN TURKOVIC is one of the few internationally known bassoon soloists performing today. He is a member of the Ensemble Wien-Berlin -- a woodwind quintet he formed together with principal players of the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics -- the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, and since 1993 an artist member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. This season Mr. Turkovic will appear at the 92nd Street Y with the Ensemble Wien-Berlin, with the Bamberg (Germany) Symphony playing the bassoon concertos of Mozart and Michael Haydn under the direction of Christopher Hogwood, and will release Wynton Marsalis' Quintet for Bassoon and String Quartet entitled Meeelaan! on the Camerata Tokyo label. Mr. Turkovic has performed as a soloist in most of the musical centers of the world with numerous renowned orchestras including the Vienna Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, St. Louis Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His discography currently consists of 15 CDs of solo repertoire, 26 CDs of chamber music, and over 200 CDs with Concentus Musicus. From 1984 until 1992, he was professor of bassoon at the Universitaet Mozarteum in Salzburg. As a conductor, Milan Turkovic appears regularly with chamber orchestras and large wind ensembles. He has conducted in concert halls in Vienna, Salzburg, Venice, Milano, Florence, New York, Osaka, and other venues. Mr. Turkovic is an avid writer on music and musicians. His third book dealing with international music life will be published in Germany in the spring of 2005. He is married to Ingrid Wendl, a current member of Austrian Parliament.
Winner of a 2005 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2005 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, SHAI WOSNER has been described by The New York Times as "a superb pianist" and by The Financial Times as "an artist to follow keenly." Active as a soloist and chamber musician, his uniquely intellectual and poetic approach has caught the attention of audiences and critics alike.
Since his Carnegie Hall debut in 2000 with the Chicago Civic Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim conducting, Mr. Wosner has appeared with many major orchestras in the United States including the Philadelphia Orchestra under Peter Oundjian, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco, Baltimore, Houston and Columbus symphony orchestras, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He has also appeared on the New York Philharmonic's series of young people's concerts. In February 2004 he gave his New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to critical acclaim. He has also given recitals in Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Vancouver, Toronto, Kalamazoo, and on Ravinia's "Rising Stars" series. Mr. Wosner also enjoys collaborating in duo recital, including recent performances with cellist Claudio Bohorquez at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. He was a member of Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two and has performed at chamber music festivals including Bargemusic, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, and the Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland.
Abroad, Mr. Wosner has appeared with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, the Barcelona Symphony under Lawrence Foster, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Gothenburg Symphony, the Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam, the Orchestre National de Belgique, and the Jerusalem Symphony, among others. He made his London Proms debut in 2003 in a performance of Mozart's Concerto for Three Pianos with pianists Daniel Barenboim and Saleem Abboud-Ashkar, and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Mr. Wosner attended the first West-Eastern Divan workshop organized by Daniel Barenboim and Yo-Yo Ma in Weimar in 1999 and has returned every year since. He has given recitals in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands and is a regular participant at the annual Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.
Future performances include, among others, return engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra; appearances at the Grand Teton Music Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, and the Seattle Chamber Music Society; and his Vienna Philharmonic debut in Salzburg as part of the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth.
An admirer of contemporary music, Mr. Wosner was invited to participate in the Pierre Boulez Workshop at Carnegie Hall in 2001. In January 2000, he performed Bright Sheng's "Red Silk Dance" with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey conducting. More recently, Mr. Wosner performed at the University of California-Berkeley's Edge Festival (June 2003) on a program dedicated to the music of John Adams. Additional appearances in contemporary music frameworks include the Ars Musica festival in Brussels in 2000 and 2001, where he performed György Ligeti's Piano Concerto under the direction of James Wood. He was also involved there in cooperation with composer Salvatore Sciarrino for a project based on his piano music that was later released on CD ("Cypres"). At the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Mr. Wosner, together with pianist Ju-Ping Song, gave the United States premiere of Per Nørgård's "Unendlicher Empfang."
A prizewinner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1999, Mr. Wosner has received awards in other international piano competitions, notably in Senigallia, Italy, in Palm Beach and at the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv (1995). He has been featured on radio and television in the United States, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Israel.
Shai Wosner has been a recipient of America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarships since 1991. Born in Israel in 1976, he studied for 12 years with Emanuel Krasovsky in Tel Aviv. In addition, he studied composition, theory and improvisation with André Hajdu, with whom he has participated in various improvisation concerts and activities. His studies continued at the Juilliard School with Emanuel Ax.
Mr. Wosner resides in New York City with his wife, Roni Tamari.
