Wiener Brahms Trio
GEN
Full Biography

Jasminca Stancul | piano
Boris Kuschnir | violin
Orfeo Mandozzi | violoncello

„Excellent soloists . . . outstanding chamber musicians . . . “
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

“ . . transparency in tone, elegance in rhythm and the singing of melodious bows in most beautiful sonority.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)


The Wiener Brahms Trio is composed of three world-wide renowned chamber musicians, who have won, also as soloists, many important international competitions. Founded in 1993, the Trio made a sensational debut in the summer of that same year at Gidon Kremer’s Chamber Music Festival of Lockenhaus, which was followed by invitations to the Kölner Philharmonie and to London Wigmore Hall.

Since then the Wiener Brahms Trio has performed with great success in Spain (Madrid), Switzerland, in Russia (Moscow: Richter Festival “December Evenings” and St. Petersburg: “Musical Spring”), England (Wigmore Hall, London), France, Scandinavia and Slovakia. It has played at the Festivals “Bregenzer Frühling”, at Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and at “White Nights” in St. Petersburg. A most successful performance at Brucknerhaus Linz was followed by a sensational Concert at Wiener Konzerthaus: Together with Yuri Bashmet and Julian Rachlin the musicians of the Wiener Brahms Trio played – to an enthusiastic audience – the quintet by Robert Schumann. The Trio is also working regularly with Nikolaj Znaider and Gérard Caussé.

In 1996 the Wiener Brahms Trio won the First Prize at the 9th International Chamber Music Competition of Illzach (Alsace, France).

As a solo ensemble the Trio has performed various Triple Concertos: with Wiener Chamber Orchestra, directed by Dr. Charles Ansbacher, they played Beethoven’s Triple Concerto at Wiener Konzerthaus; with the same ensemble they played the Concerto at the Festival Bregenzer Frühling, under the direction of Philippe Entremont, and again, with great success, with the Irish National Orchestra in the National Concert Hall of Dublin, directed by Gerhard Markson. In Luxembourg the Wiener Brahms Trio played the Triple Concerto by Bohuslav Martinů, with the Solistes Européens directed by Jack Händler.

The Complete Piano Trios by Schumann have been recorded by Wiener Brahms Trio for NAXOS. This Complete Edition on 2 CDs is a reference recording, which was honoured by several international music magazines.

In autumn 2006 the Wiener Brahms Trio started their 10th concert tour to England. During their stays in England they not only gave regularly concerts at Wigmore Hall, but also made studio recordings for BBC and a live performance at BBC Radio 3.

In the last few years, the Trio has performed in numerous concerts all over Europe, including Wiener Musikverein, Wiener Festwochen Festival, Museumsgesellschaft in Frankfurt, Wigmore Hall in London and Schubertiade Roskilde in Denmark, to mention but a few of them. In recent times there were concerts in Spain, at Auditorio Nacional Madrid, at the Festival of Divonne, France, in Luxembourg, Geneva, Belgrad, Zagreb, Dublin, and in many other concert halls of the world.

The musicians of the Vienna Brahms Trio play on outstanding instruments: Boris Kuschnir plays a violin made by Antonio Stradivari, “La Rouse-Boughton”, Cremone, 1703; it was given to him as a loan in 1991 by the Austrian National Bank in recognition of his artistic performance and his service rendered to music. Orfeo Mandozzi plays a cello made by Francesco Ruggeri, Cremone, 1675.


Boris Kuschnir
Violin

“A sensitive musician, who combines Russian intensity with the rich Viennese suppleness of sound. With Boris Kuschnir soulfulness and passionate confession are in good hands.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Boris Kuschnir, born in Kiev in 1948, studied violin at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire with Boris Belenky and chamber music with Valentin Berlinsky (of the Borodin Quartet). His many encounters with Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrach, with whom he also studied, have had a lasting influence on his artistic development.

He has won numerous prizes at international violin and chamber music competitions (Paris, Belgrad, Sion, Bratislava, Florence, Triest, Hamburg, Vercelli, All Union Competition St. Petersburg). In 1970 he founded the Moscow String Quartet remaining their permanent member until 1979. Since 1981 Boris Kuschnir has been living in Austria. In 1982 he became an Austrian citizen. Until 1983 he was First Concert Master of the Brucknerorchester Linz. Since 1984 he has been Professor at the Conservatoire Vienna Private University, and in 1999 he was also appointed University Professor at the Music University of Graz.

His reputation as a teacher has won international recognition with the outstanding success of his pupils: Julian Rachlin (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Amsterdam 1988), Nikolaj Znaider (1st Prize Queen Elizabeth Competition, Brussels 1997), Lidia Baich (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Vienna 1998), Dalibor Karvay (1st Price EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Berlin 2002, and 1st Prize International Tibor Varga Competition, Switzerland 2003), Alexandra Soumm (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musi¬cians, Lucerne 2004), Kirill Kobantschenko, Tibor Kovac, Eugeni Andrusenko (all violinists at the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), Melina Mandozzi (Guest Concertmaster at the London Symphony Orchestra) and Vahid Khadem-Missagh (First Concertmaster of Niederösterreichisches Tonkünstler Orchestra). Moreover Boris Kuschnir as a violin teacher has produced more than 20 prize winners of national and international competitions. He has also given master classes and worked as a jury member of international competitions (among others Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, Niccolò Paganini Competition in Genoa, Tibor Varga Competition in Switzerland, Michael Hill Competition in New Zealand, Eurovision Competition).

In 1984 Boris Kuschnir founded the Wiener Schubert Trio, which received many prestigious awards (among them the Mozart Interpretationspreis 1988 and the Prize of the Ernst-von-Siemens Foundation 1990). He has played as a soloist and a chamber musician in some of the world’s most illustrious venues: Musikverein in Vienna, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, as well as in the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow and the Ishibashi Memorial Hall in Tokyo. He has performed in numerous international festivals, such as Salzburger Festspiele, Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Besançon, Washington, Spoleto, Naples, Stresa, Bregenzer Festspiele, Sviatoslav Richter Winter Festival in Moscow, Verbier Festival in Switzerland. His chamber music partners are such illustrious musicians as L. Leonskaja, B. Berezovsky, E. Bashkirova, L. O. Andsnes, J. Rachlin, N. Znaider, M. Vengerov, D. Sitkovetsky, R. Capuçon, J. Bashmet, G. Caussé, N. Imai, B. Pergamenschikow, S. Isserlis, G. Capuçon, V. Hagen (Hagen Quartet), H. Beyerle, T. Kakuska, V. Erben (Alban Berg Quartet) und M. Kopelman (Borodin Quartet).

Both as a soloist and chamber musician Boris Kuschnir has made numerous recordings. In 1993 he founded the Wiener Brahms Trio. With this ensemble he has since played in the world’s most illustrious venues and made many recordings, notably the complete Mozart piano trios (EMI) and Schumann’s complete works for piano trio (NAXOS). In 2003 Boris Kuschnir was the co-founder of the Kopelman Quartet, with whom he has been playing and made recordings (Nimbus Records) and concerts all over the world.

In 1999 he was awarded the title “Professor” by the Austrian Federal President Dr. Thomas Klestil.

Boris Kuschnir plays a violin made by Antonio Stradivari, Cremone, 1703, the “La Rouse-Boughton”, which was given to him as a loan by the Austrian National Bank in 1991 in recognition of his artistic performance and his service rendered to music.


Orfeo Mandozzi
Violoncello

With his “fascinating musical personality and the bewitching beauty of his tone” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) Orfeo Mandozzi has captured the imagination of audiences in the whole of Europe, USA, Canada, Asia and South America.

Orfeo Mandozzi was born in 1968 in Locarno/Switzerland to a family with a long musical tradition. He received a wide-ranging musical training from his father, a composer and conductor. After only three years of cello studying he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. He completed his studies at the Milan Conservatoire and at the New York Juilliard School of music (where he also studied composition with Stanley Wolf). For both studies he gained his diploma with Honours (“Summa cum laude” and “Mention of Honour”).

Since 1991 Orfeo Mandozzi has lived in Vienna, where he undertook and completed with honours postgraduate studies with Prof. Wolfgang Herzer (cello) and with Yuji Yuasa and Prof. Karl Österreicher (conducting) at the Vienna Music University.

His participation as an active student in master classes with Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo Yo Ma, Paul Tortelier, Daniel Shafran, Harvey Shapiro, Bernhard Greenhouse, Siegfried Palm, Gary Karr, Felix Galimir and Robert Mann, gave him further impulse and enrichment. Orfeo Mandozzi has won several First Prizes at international competitions, among them: 1st Prize at the UFAM Paris, 1st Prize at the Johannes Brahms Competition in Pörtschach (Austria), and 1st Prize at the International Chamber Music Competition in Osaka (Japan).

His international activity as a performing soloist includes concert tours through nearly all European countries, the USA, South and Central America, as well as numerous radio, television and CD productions. He is a member of the Wiener Brahms Trio and performs worldwide with Nikolas Znaider, Julian Rachlin, Thomas Christian, David Garrett, Gérard Caussé, Yuri Bashmet, Ori Kam, Veronika Hagen, Itamar Golan, Stefan Vladar, Anika Vavic, Christopher Hinterhuber and Jasminka Stancul. From 1992 – 93 Mandozzi was Principal Cellist of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, from 1993 – 2007 he held the same position with the Tonkünstler Orchestra.

Orfeo Mandozzi’s primary interest is the enlargement of the existing standard cello repertoire, rediscovering and promoting rare and unjustly neglected compositions from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. (J. Fiala: Cello Concertos, CD recording of the complete works of Lalo.) He is the editor of the “Edizione Arteviva” and is working closely with several composers of our time, who have dedicated many works to him.

Since 2006 Orfeo Mandozzi holds a professorship at the Music University of Würzburg (Germany).

Orfeo Mandozzi plays a violoncello made by Francesco Ruggeri, Cremone, 1675.


Jasminka Stancul
Piano

In spring 2008 Jasminka Stancul debuted with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and recorded the Beethoven-Concertos N° 1 und 5 with the Haydn Orchestra Bolzano under Gustav Kuhn for col legno Classics. In September 2008 she will open the season of the Philharmonie Essen playing the Mozart-Concerto KV 467, which she will also perform two months later at her debut with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Apart from that she will appear in 2008/09 with the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz (Mozart KV 488), the Stuttgart Philharmonic (Mozart KV 466) and the Slovakian Philharmonic (Ravel G major).
 
Since winning the 1st prize at the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna Jasminka Stancul has performed with: Wiener Symphoniker, Wiener Concertverein, Mozarteum Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester, Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe, Nuernberg Philharmonic, Robert Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz, Slovenian Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Zagreb Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liege, Gulbenkian Foundation, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Madison Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
 
Jasminka Stancul has worked with outstanding conductors such as Alexeev, Bareza, Bartolomé, Baudo, Boni, Graf, Horvat, Kobayashi, Korsten, Kuhn, Luisi, Maazel, Ono, Perick, Rahbari, Rasilainen, Remmereit, Salonen, Sanderling, Saraste, Schirmer, Sieghart, Stein, Weil and Wildner. She appeared at many important festivals such as the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Schleswig-Holstein and Rheingau Musik Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Settimane Musicale di Stresa, Wiener Musiksommer, Carinthischer Sommer, Radio France Montpellier as well as in Toulouse, Besancon and Bratislava.
 
Since December 2006 Jasminka Stancul joined the renowned chamber music ensemble Wiener Brahms Trio, with whom she has already performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under Gerhard Markson and at the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria Santander. In April 2005 she made her outstanding recital-debut in the Brahms-Saal of the Wiener Musikverein, where she also enjoys a close cooperation with the Wiener Streichquartett, a Wiener Philharmoniker-ensemble. Regular Japan-tours are also among their mutual activities.
 
For Discover she recorded all Beethoven-Concerts, for Camerata Tokyo the Schubert-Trios and for Koch the Forellen-Quintett with the Ensemble Wien. She makes recordings for the Norddeutscher, Hessischer and Austrian Radio and plays chamber music with famous colleagues like Boris Pergamenschikow, Christian Altenburger and David Geringas.
 
Jasminka Stancul, born in Serbia and now an Austrian citizen, studied in her home country as well as the Music Conservatory in Vienna with Noel Flores. The Swiss Government awarded her a two-year-scholarship for extraordinary talented artists, allowing her to study in Maria Tipo’s master class in Geneva.

2008

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