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Tenor Ian Bostridge (image credit: David Thompson)

The final Chamber Prom of this season offered a pause to savour the music of the great English Renaissance lutenist, singer and composer John Dowland, whose 450th birthday falls this year.

Dowland’s music epitomizes the spirit of melancholy, fashionable in the Elizabethan period, and his most famous work is the Lacrimae, a set of seven pavanes for viols and lute, each drawn from the song Flow, My Tears.

For this concert, acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge was joined by accomplished lutenist Elizabeth Kenny and the renowned viol consort Fretwork. Cadogan Hall is perhaps not the best venue to enjoy the intimate simplicity of Dowland’s music, but, seated in a semicircle, the musicians created an atmosphere of concentrated closeness, which held the audience’s attention for an hour and more, and allowed the seductive melancholy of Dowland’s music to shine through.

Read my full review

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Who or what inspired you to take up singing, and make it your career?
Philip Evry, my mother, Iain Burnside, Graham Johnson and Robin Bowman inspired me to pursue singing professionally.

Who or what were the most important influences on your musical life and career?

My mentor, Lillian Watson, David Sirus, Dinah Harris, Laurence Cummings, Julius Drake, my best friend and compatriot, Olivia Chaney, and Adam Gatehouse.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

Singing what I love singing. Jumping in for a concert, learning Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos and Barber Knoxville in 36 hours for live radio broadcast.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

Mahler Ruckert Lieder with the BBC Philharmonic and John Storgards, Phaedra with Thomas Sondergard and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, recordings with the wonderful Julius Drake, Berg and Chausson with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. These have been hugely special experiences as New Generation Artist at the BBC.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

Lucerne Concert Hall was the most perfect acoustic I have ever experienced. I adore church acoustics so St Georges Hanover Square is very special, and LSO St Lukes. I also enjoy QEH, Ulster Hall, and  Glasgow Concert Hall – to name a few.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

I love listening to Brahms chamber music, music for solo piano by Chopin and Schubert, Schubert and Schumann song, Mahler symphonies, Shostakovich and Prokofiev symphonies  and ballets. Berg’s ‘Wozzek’, Strauss’s ‘Alpine’ symphony at full blast!!, Monteverdi ‘Vespers’, Tallis, Byrd.

To perform, I adore Schubert, Schumann, Bach, Handel, Berg, Britten, Mahler, Monteverdi, Purcell, and I love discovering new gems too!

Who are your favourite musicians?

Richter, Kleiber, Oistrakh, Callas, Margaret Price, Jessie Norman, Rostrapovitch, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong. From today’s generation Truls Mork, Laurence Cummings, Cristian Curnyn, Kozena, Sondergaard, Storgards, Paul Lewis, Imogen Cooper, Artemis quartet, Nico Altstadt, AKAMUS, OAE………the list goes on and on.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Probably the most recent: jumping in for BBC Proms with Imogen Cooper and James Gilchrist in Britten’s Abraham and Isaac.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Go to art galleries, look at paintings, sculpture, ceramics – this is the life blood for inspiration and imagination. I have learnt a great deal from instrumental recitals regarding sound as well as from singers, and seeing how performers, actors, and musicians communicate is really important in finding one’s own way of performing. Also, never forget the joy of music making. With the rough and tumble of this industry, my manager never ceases to remind me of this

What are you working on at the moment?

Gorecki ‘Symphony of Sorrows’ for the BBC Proms on September the 4th and a recording of Venetian Christmas Music for BIS.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

Eating ice-cream with my nieces or being neighbours with my favourite people, maybe bringing up a couple of little ones of my own, who knows.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Discovering new places, meeting new and interesting people, dancing with good friends, cooking good food, Thai massage, being spontaneous, and living each day to the full!

What is your most treasured possession?

My mother’s Jazz Piano ceramics, which she made just before I was born. The other is my cello which I would love to start playing properly again at some point.

What do you enjoy doing most?

Too many things to mention!

What is your present state of mind?

Breezy, summery, and with a coffee

A BBC New Generation Artist and winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 London Handel Singing Competition, Ruby Hughes is the daughter of the celebrated Welsh ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch. She gained a First Class Distinction Concert Diploma in Concert and Song at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich, and was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott Award. A former Samling Scholar, she gained a full scholarship to study with Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, London, graduating in July 2009.

Read Ruby’s full biography here

My review of Ruby Hughes, with James Gilchrist and Imogen Cooper, in ‘Britten Up Close’ at the 2013 BBC Proms

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Anika Vavic (photo credit: Marco Borggreve)

Who or what inspired you to take up the piano, and make it your career?

I was lucky to have very motivating teachers from the very beginning of my musical career. I attended Ivo Pogorelich´s recital in Belgrade when I was 9 years old (alone, because it was sold out so my parents couldn’t accompany me) and the atmosphere in the concert hall fascinated me so much – so much that I felt a desire to perform professionally. I remember Pogorelich performing a Chopin programme, and it was so fantastic I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt and thought that I saw a lion making music with that Steinway piano.

Who or what were the most important influences on your playing?

My teachers Noel Flores, Lazar Berman and Mstislav Rostropovich, and the ‘old school pianists’ such as Sofronitzky, Rachmaninov, Richter, Gilels to name some, as well as Radu Lupu, Sokolov, Barenboim.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

My “Rising Stars” tour was certainly thrilling where I had the opportunity to perform at the Carnegie Hall and Concertgebouw for example. Another fantastic experience was my debut performance at the great Vienna Konzerthaus performing Tchaikovsky´s Piano Concerto No.1. Also, the first time I performed with Valery Gergiev was very special.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

In general, all the performances where I felt I was going beyond the “concept”, including my visualized 3D model of the composition I was performing [and discovering a new angle of the piece while performing.  I love the Schumann “Kreisleriana” I recorded for the last CD – that’s a recording that I will still love in 20 years.

 Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?

My favourite venues are the Vienna Musikverein, Vienna Konzerthaus, the new Mariinsky Concert Hall and definitely the Conservatory in Moscow.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

I love performing any piece by Bach, Haydn Sonatas, Beethoven (especially op. 101), Schumann, Ravel, Brahms, Scriabin, everything by Prokofiev… I love listening to Brahms’ Double Concerto with Oistrakh/Rostropovich.

Who are your favourite musicians?

The musicians who serve the music and not themselves are my favourite: Oistrach, Rostropovich, Richter, Gilels, Rachmaninow, Sofronitzky, Sokolov, Lupu, Maazel, Gergiev, Jansons…. Unfortunately such musicians seem to disappear with the rise of the younger generation, and the whole music making fashion.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

I remember performing Bach´s Italian Concerto among other compositions and enjoying sitting on the grand chair in this great hall in Belgrade, and all the attention that I received along with it. I was 11 I think, and I thought, ‘that´s how Pogorelich must feel on this same chair and piano we are “sharing” as colleagues’.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Honesty and real love towards music, and looking back to the old times where there was ‘no selling of emperor’s new clothes’ as it is today with making music – my advice to aspiring new musicians is to take it from there and keep the musical morality.

What are you working on at the moment?

The phenomenal 4th Piano Concerto by Rodion Shchedrin for my performance with Valery Gergiev, and Prokofiev´s 3rd Piano Concerto as I will be performing this piece at the Proms this month and the Enescu Festival in September.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

Continuing the collaboration with my dear colleagues Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Jurowski, Paavo Jarvi, but also performing with Mariss Jansons, for instance.

What is your most treasured possession?

Vivid recollections of beautiful moments.

Anika Vavic performs Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major with Vladimir Jurowski on Friday 30th August. Further details here

Pianist Anika Vavic made her performance debut at Vienna’s Konzerthaus in 2003, and as a result, was chosen for the 2003/04 season highly commended “Rising Stars” concert cycle, leading to further performances in some of the world’s most famous concert halls. Together with the Musikverein, the Österreichischer Rundfunk produced a CD of her recital program from the season; Anika’s first release. Her latest disc, featuring works by Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin and Prokofiev was released in 2010 to great acclaim.

Anika works regularly with orchestras such as the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic and the MDR Orchestra Leipzig, and performs at festivals such as the ”White Nights” festival in St. Petersburg, the Istanbul Music Festival and Valery Gergiev’s Mikkelli Festival in Finland.

Her upcoming engagements include concerts with the Mariinsky Orchestra in July 2013, her debut performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the BBC Proms and at the Enescu Festival in August 2013 and her return to the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in March 2014. [Biography courtesy of Wildkat PR]

www.anikavavic.com

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Christina Pluhar (image credit © Marco Borggreve)

Early music and Baroque crossover ensemble l’Arpeggiata, under the direction of theorbo player Christina Pluhar, gave a five-star performance of toe-tapping Tarantellas, jazzy improvisations, and soulful songs in their Proms debut at Cadogan Hall. Read my full review here

 
The concert opened with this Ciaccona by Cazzati: