INFORMATION LETTER MASTER CLASSES IN VOCAL, VIOLIN, VIOLA AND PIANO 16.-20.3.2015 The Oulu Music Festival organizes international master classes for vocal, violin, viola and piano students during March 16th - 20th, 2015. Students will get daily private lessons during the course. Some students may be offered the possibility to perform at the festival on Friday, March 20th. The course is also available for passive students who can attend the master classes. TEACHERS Soile Isokoski vocal Jennifer Frautschi violin Anna Kreetta Gribajcevic viola Paavali Jumppanen piano *More information about the teachers below. FEES MASTER CLASS Mon 16.- Fri 20.3.2014, Oulu University of Applied Sciences (Kotkantie 1, Oulu). Private lessons Festival pass (includes 10 self-selected tickets to the Oulu Music Festival concerts) Price: 420 € PASSIVE STUDENTS Class Attendance Festival pass (includes 10 self-selected tickets to the Oulu Music Festival concerts) Price: 150 € APPLYING Application by Friday, January 16th, 2015. The application form can be found on the Oulu Music Festival website: www.omj.fi/en/masterclass More information: Ms. Mari Aarni [email protected] +358 (0)44 366 3818 www.omj.fi 1 TEACHERS SOILE ISOKOSKI VOCAL As one of the world top-class sopranos, Soile Isokoski is especially known as a lyrical Mozart and Strauss soprano performer. Her most famous roles have been Fiordiligi of Cosi Fan Tutte and Donna Elvira of Giovanni. This sensitive singer is also known of her mesmerizingly beautiful singing as Elsa in Lohengrin and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. She is one of the most respected concert and opera singers in her voice range internationally. Isokoski’s concert performance and recording repertoire is extensive, ranging from religious music to pieces that are only very rarely performed. Graduated as a cantor from the Sibelius Academy, Isokoski had a major turning point in her career in 1987 when she succeeded both in the Lappeenranta Singing Competition and in the BBC’s Singer of the World competition. Since then Isokoski has been successful in a number of singing competitions and performed at famous opera houses around the world, like the Vienna State Opera where Isokoski has sung 14 different roles in over 140 shows. Isokoski was awarded the Chamber Singer title by the Vienna State Opera in 2008. The Director of the Vienna State Opera, Ioan Holender, stressed in his award-giving speech that to receive this title, a long-term cooperation only is not enough but the singer also has to be a favourite of the audience, not just of the opera house. In 1987-1994, Isokoski worked for the Finnish National Opera where her first opera role was Mimi of La Boheme. Soile Isokoski has been awarded the Sibelius Prize in 1995 and 2007, the Finnish Cultural Foundation Prize in 2001 and Pro Finlandia Prize in 2002. She has also received awards for her numerous recordings. Furthermore, Isokoski has lead several master class courses. In October 2011, she had the first recital at the Helsinki Music Centre. More information: www.intermusica.co.uk/isokoski#biography JENNIFER FRAUTSCHI VIOLIN Two-time Grammy nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient Jennifer Frautschi has garnered worldwide acclaim as an adventurous musician with a remarkably wide-ranging repertoire. Highlights of her past season included performances with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Tucson Symphony, as well as return engagements with the Alabama, Arkansas, Belo Horizonte, Chattanooga, Phoenix, and Toledo Symphonies and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. This past summer she performed at the Ojai, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Moab, Bridgehampton, and SaltBay Music Festivals. 2 Her discography includes the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Robert Craft, and two GRAMMY-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet. Her most recent releases are a recording of Romantic Horn Trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with pianist Jeremy Denk. With pianist John Blacklow she will release two discs on Albany Records this year: the first devoted to the Schumann sonatas; the second an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by American composers. Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi was a student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School; she also attended Harvard, NEC, and Juilliard, where she studied with Robert Mann. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the "ex-Cadiz," on generous loan from a private American foundation. More information: www.jenniferfrautschi.com ANNA KREETTA GRIBAJCEVIC VIOLA Anna Kreetta Gribajcevic studied at the Sibelius Academy, the Saarbrücken College of Music and the Academy of Music ‘Hanns Eisler’ Berlin. She won second prize in the BDI Viola Competition in Leverkusen in 1995 and the following year won the Tampere Viola Competition. She has appeared as a recitalist and chamber musician in Europe and the USA, at numerous festivals and as a soloist with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and Berlin Symphony Orchestra. She has given the Finnish premières of many compositions. Anna Kreetta Gribajcevic has been principal violist of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra since 2000 and is a founder member of the Helsinki Festival Orchestra. More information: www.eclassical.com/performers/gribajcevic-anna-kreetta PAAVALI JUMPPANEN PIANO The pianist Paavali Jumppanen is known as one of the most active and successful Finnish pianists of his generation. Jumppanen won the Maj Lind Piano Competition in 1994 and the Young Concert Artists’ International Auditions Competition in New York in 2000. His repertoire includes an extensive range of piano music from Bach to the avant-garde. Jumppanen has worked with many composers of our generation that has given him a wide perspective into music and its constantly changing nature. He has 3 premiered a big number of piano and chamber music pieces. His interest in the Viennese classical era took him to Harvard University this passing year to write a book about the Beethoven piano sonatas. Jumppanen has performed both the Beethoven and Mozart piano sonatas in well-respected concert series in Finland and the US. The Boston Globe wrote about ”the perfect balance of the late [Beethoven] sonatas” and ”Jumppanen’s overwhelming musician-ness through which became clear to the audience how Beethoven’s music was so revolutionary so early on.” Jumppanen’s Mozart, on the other hand, plays ”Apollonian brightly, with perfectly timed phrases that open the spectrum of rich experience of classism.” Jumppanen has also recorded a lot. Deutsche Grammophone published Jumppanen’s 2005recording of Pierre Boulez’s three piano sonatas. The recording, which Jumppanen prepared for with Boulez’s lead, received a great deal of publicity and it has been awarded, for instance, with the Diapason d’Or prize in France and with the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik prize in Germany. The Guardian newspaper has regarded it as the best of all time of Boulez piano music recording. Jumppanen’s Beethoven’s violin sonatas total recording with the Canadian violinist Corey Cerovsek for the Claves label was awarded with the one of the most prestigious classical music recording prizes in Europe, the Midem Prize, in 2008. In addition to solo concerts and lecturing, Jumppanen regularly visits significant Finnish orchestras as a soloist and performs with major European orchestras. For example, the cooperation with the BBC Symphony Orchestra has continued for years. In addition to his international soloist career, Jumppanen is a popular teacher. This year, he will have master class courses in Kuhmo and also, for example, in Savonlinna and Boston. Jumppanen has also worked as a piano and chamber music teacher in his home town’s Espoo’s Music Institute. Paavali Jumppanen received Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation nomination award for his work for the Finnish culture in 2011. More information: www.fazerartists.fi/suomeksi/taiteilijat/solistit/piano/jumppanen-paavali 4