Musicians
Martino Tirimo is performing all of Chopin's solo works, as well as the six works for piano and orchestra, in the much acclaimed new Kings Place concert hall in London in February, March and June 2010 and in other major venues in Europe during 2009 and 2010. Born in Cyprus of Greek origin and living in London, he has given many cycles of the Beethoven sonatas and other complete series devoted to the works of Mozart, Robert and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Debussy. He has over 50 recordings for EMI, BMG and other companies including the piano concertos of Chopin, Brahms, Tippett and Rachmaninov, the complete solo works of Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, and Janacek, all 21 Schubert piano Sonatas and will next record all of Chopin's works. He performs with many of the world's great orchestras and his repertoire includes 70 piano concertos. In Athens, during the Olympics in 2004, he had a standing ovation from over 5000 people for his playing of Beethoven's fourth piano concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic.
He conducted La Traviata seven times when he was twelve years old and has conducted many leading orchestras all over the world since then.
The Daily Telegraph says of Martino Tirimo: 'An inspiring poet of the piano - a pianist of vision... his playing is among the most haunting and fascinating of all'
Mark Latimer stated that 'Martino Tirimo has always been a pianist of such incomparable musical depth and unswerving musical honesty across an enormous wide ranging repertoire that he is one of the only living musicians to compare with such greats as Arrau, Backhaus and Solomon' in the Monmouth Free Press.
CHOPIN, TIRIMO AND INTEGRITY
By Mark Latimer
We are inestimably fortunate, to inhabit a time when even the most insatiable appetite for 'completeness' can be comparatively straightforwardly satiated. Indeed, one can scarcely turn a corner in any metropolis that possesses a vestige of cultural awareness without being given the opportunity to partake of the complete Shakespeare, the complete Beethoven Piano sonatas, or those by Schubert et.al.. However, integral public performances of the complete piano works by Chopin are among the rarest undertaken cycles, indeed in the nearly two centuries that have elapsed one can almost count those given on one hand. There is, conjecturally a vast number of reasons for this. Even today the compendious physical and technical demands these works make, individually much less in Toto, are not fully understood and acknowledged, and when you add to this the inescapable fact that they also demand unparalleled powers of concentration and all occupy such a high emotional and spiritual plane and leave virtually no area, irrespective of how disturbing they may be, of the human psyche unexplored and unplumbed, that perhaps the reasons for the seldom occurrence of cycles is more self-explanatory. Having personally played publicly well nigh every note, though for many reasons not as a cycle, I willingly attest to the immensity of such an integral performance. Furthermore, to find an artist who has at their disposal, all the prerequisite qualities in abundance one can only really look towards Martino Tirimo as guide and curator, an unequivocal genius of a musician who has uniquely presented the complete Mozart, the complete Beethoven, the complete Debussy, the complete Janacek, the complete Robert and Clara Schumann and perhaps most remarkably of all, the very, very first complete Schubert. There exists no other pianist who can lay claim to these truly astonishing accomplishments; a composer himself, conductor, scholar, musicologist, distinguished chamber musician, professor, pedagogue, zealous selfless musical missionary and just about the most formidable virtuoso imaginable, my dear friend Martino Tirimo, thanks to whose indefatigable searching, both literally, spiritually and metaphorically means that by his unearthing hitherto unknown, unheard and undiscovered Chopin oeuvres, this is the first time the world will have heard the ENTIRE Chopin output. So we end cyclically, Chopin, Tirimo and Integrity in both meanings of the word.
Mark Latimer 04. viii. 09
Mark Latimer is an eclectic performer with an extensive track-record across jazz, contemporary and classical music. His experimental musical and visual projects often involve film, animation, dance, contemporary and digital art, and are channels for his insatiable desire for constant reinvention and illustrate his voracious push into radical new territory.
A protege of the brilliant classical pianist John Ogdon, who was a major force in his pianistic outlook, Latimer became a close friend. Additionally influential were his studies with Albert Ferber and Angus Morrison, who offered direct links to Rachmaninov, Ravel and Debussy, and unique insight into how the composers wished their works to be performed.
He has worked with some of the world's most renowned musicians, including Sir Adrian Boult, Sergiu Celibidache, Stan Getz, Sir Charles Groves, Elizabeth Harwood and John Dankworth, performed and broadcast in more than 30 countries, including most recently China, and undertaken more than 150 world music premieres.
Recordings on major and independent labels reflect the diverse areas of his work and include Valentin Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano, Max Reger's Variations and Fugues on themes by Bach and Telemann, Mily Balakirev's Islamey (which was voted in the top 10 recordings of this work by The Gramophone), Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, jazz and site-specific improvisation.
Equally, innovative projects include Terpsichorus, improvised music and dance, Realtime Reeltime, contemporary music and animation, Music from a Farther Room, film short starring Harriet Walter and David de Keyser and directed by exciting new film maker Tobias Munthe, White Noise, dance and video projection, Sketches of Spain, improvised, contemporary and traditional music inspired by the Iberian peninsula, experimental theatre on Brecht and Eisler with Annie Castledine, doyen of British theatre, and Two Dragons, aural and visual installation with digital artist Alex So and choreographer Rong Tao.
Latimer's philosophy encompasses the music spectrum, drives him to explore new ways of presenting music, question barriers, striving to break new ground in performance in as wide a musical landscape as possible.
The Guardian: 'critics' opinions of the phenomenal British pianist Mark Latimer may sound like hyperbole until you have encountered the musician at work, at which point they sound like understatements instead'
Classic FM magazine: 'crashing passion and organ-power delivery'
BBC Music magazine: 'Mark Latimer plays with] Horowitz-like fury and dare-devil energy - a remarkably gifted musician, he takes the ferocious difficulties in his stride'
Zoran Jancic was born in Sarajevo in 1956 and gave his first recital at the age of twelve. Between 1975 and 1982 he studied at the Academy of Music in Zagreb (Croatia) and graduated with First Class Honours in Music Performance and subsequently completed his Postgraduate Studies (MA) at the end of 1983. His education is linked with Liszt through his piano teacher Mrs P Gvozdic, whose predecessor studied with Liszt's pupils in Berlin. Between 1979 and 1982, Zoran also took part in master classes conducted by E Timakin, R Kerrer, A Valdma, L Brunberg and P Barbisett, prominent figures in 20th century Russian and French schools of thought. Zoran Jancic was Professor of Piano Studies at the Academy of Music in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and was one of last staff to continue teaching in spite of the war. At great personal risk he continued to give performances during the siege of Sarajevo until he left the city in the spring 1993. 'It was experience of a life time to teach and perform in such life threatening conditions.' He has performed in more than 500 concerts all over former Yugoslavia as well as in Germany, Denmark, Italy, France, Ireland and the U.K. He has entranced international audiences with his sensitive and versatile playing and received rapturous critical acclaim. He is currently teaching at the Faculty of Arts in the city of Nis, Serbia, where he is also head of the piano department.
Le Monde (Paris): 'Zoran Jancic's technique is impeccable; he shows a deep feeling for all the music he interprets; his rich, warm tone reaches the heart of every listener'.
Thomas Cooper was born in Hereford and spent his childhood near Monmouth in South Wales. He began serious piano study at the comparatively late age of 16. He attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and followed the career of a concert pianist for several years following his graduation, playing in England, Wales, North America, Iceland and France. He became increasingly interested in the scholarly study of music and took his MMus in Performance Studies with distinction at the Royal College of Music, following this with his PhD in nineteenth-century French music at Liverpool University. He joined the staff of the Open University in 1994 and has since combined performance with teaching and academic research, appearing on Radio 3 and being recorded by the Open University. He has published on French music, writing an essay on nineteenth-century opera, ballet and spectacle in the recent French Music since Berlioz edited by Richard Langham Smith and Caroline Potter, and jointly wrote an essay on the use of Chopin's music in Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, published in a volume of essays on words and music entitled Phrase and Subject. He was recently made consulting editor of the early music journal The Consort.