Underwriter: Virginia National Bank

Childen’s Concert Principal Underwriter: The Watterson Foundation

Program:

Beethoven	Sonata No. 8 in G Major, Op. 30, No. 3
Schnittke	Violin Sonata No. 1
J.S. Bach	Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in d minor BWV 1004
Ravel	Violin Sonata

“Doubtless a single violin performance recently has been as moving and exceptional as the concert debut of the Munich violinist Arabella Steinbacher. Of her essence: natural and with placid contemplation, distinguished and musically aesthetic, both elegant and rich in tone, while intelligently interpreted.” – Stuttgarter Zeitung

Artist Biographies

Since her extraordinary and unexpected debut in Paris in March 2004, when she stepped in on short notice for an ailing colleague and performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Sir Neville Marriner, German violinist Arabella Steinbacher has become a fast-rising star on the international concert scene.

Arabella Steinbacher’s diverse repertoire includes more than twenty concertos for violin. In addition to all of the major concertos of the Classical and Romantic period, she also performs those of Barber, Berg, Glazunov, Khatchaturian, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, and Hartmann.

Arabella Steinbacher records for ORFEO International. In 2007, Ms. Steinbacher received an ECHO-Klassik Award for Young Artist of the Year for her album, Violino Latino, a collection of a Spanish and South-American works performed with pianist Peter von Wienhardt. In addition, her recording of Shostakovich’s Violin Concertos No. 1 and No. 2 was named among the October 2007 “Les Chocs du Mois” in Le Monde de la Musique. She received the German Record Critics Award in 2005 for her recording of Milhaud’s rarely-heard Violin Concertos No. 1 and No. 2, Concertino de Printemps, and Le Boeuf dur le toit; and again in 2006 for her Shostakovich disc.

The Stuttgarter Zeitung has proclaimed, “Doubtless a single violin performance recently has been as moving and exceptional as the concert debut of the Munich violinist Arabella Steinbacher. Of her essence: natural and with placid contemplation, distinguished and musically aesthetic, both elegant and rich in tone, while intelligently interpreted.”

Ms. Steinbacher’s New York recital debut in June 2006 was called “a particular highlight of the month” by The Strad magazine. The New York Times wrote, “Balanced lyricism and fire ….among her assets are a finely polished technique and a beautifully varied palette of timbres.”

In November 2007, Ms. Steinbacher made her debut as soloist with an American orchestra, performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnányi. The Chicago Tribune reported, “From her magical entry over hushed orchestral strings to the biting swagger she brought to the dancing finale, it was evident that her feeling for this music runs as deep as her technical command. The central Adagio came off especially beautifully, Steinbacher conveying its brooding melancholy with a rich vibrato, impeccable intonation and a remarkable breadth of phrasing. The sound she drew from her 1716 “Booth” Stradivari stood out from the orchestra: limitless tonal depth swaddled in velvet. Let’s have her back, and soon.”

Other highlights of Ms. Steinbacher’s 2007-2008 season include debuts with the NDR-Sinfonieorchester also under Christoph von Dohnányi, the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi, the Orchestre National de Belgique under Walter Weller, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Marek Janowski, the Orchestra Nacional de Espana under Mark Albrecht, and a European tour with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the European Youth Orchestra.

Ms. Steinbacher has already appeared with leading international orchestras including the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, The London Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Orquesta Sinfónica de la RTVE of Madrid, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestra of the Bayerische Rundfunk, Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, the WDR Orchestra of Cologne, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the MDR-Sinfonieorchester, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Danish Orchestra.

Highlights of past seasons have included a critically acclaimed tour of Germany with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Yuri Termirkanov, a tour of the United States with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a Tokyo debut with the New Japan Philharmonic, a recital debut at the Tonhalle in Zürich, and a performance of the Berg violin concerto at the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw.

An important part of Arabella Steinbacher’s concert calendar is devoted to chamber music. Her chamber music partners include the pianists Robert Kulek and Peter von Wienhardt, as well as the cellists Alban Gerhardt and Daniel Müller-Schott. Recitals and trio concerts are scheduled for cities all over the world, as well as at international music festivals including the Munich Summer Festival, Schleswig-Holstein-Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Salzburg Festival, and the Schwetzinger Festival.

Born in Munich in 1981 to a German father and a Japanese mother, Arabella Steinbacher began studying the violin at the age of three. Her mother is a professionally trained singer who came to Germany from Japan to study music, and her father was the first Solorepetitor in the Bayerische Staatsoper, from 1960 to 1972. Ms. Steinbacher is also an accomplished pianist.

At nine, she became the youngest violin student of Ana Chumachenko at the Munich Academy of Music. She received further musical inspiration and guidance from Ivry Gitlis, whom she still meets regularly in Paris, and has attended master classes with Dorothy Delay and Kurt Sassmanshaus in Aspen, Colorado. In 2001, she won the sponsorship prize of the Free State of Bavaria and in the same year she was awarded a scholarship by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. From Anne-Sophie Mutter, who personally supports her, Ms. Steinbacher received a bow from the master luthier Benoit Rolland.

Arabella Steinbacher plays the “Booth” Stradivari (1716) generously provided by the Nippon Music Foundation.

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