The Rachmaninov Festival that is coming up this weekend is now completely sold out. Couldn't you get tickets anymore? No worries, because next week, on Friday 10 February, two legendary piano talents will be our guests again. Sivan Silver and her partner Gil Garburg have conquered the world as a piano duo over the past 20 years. At BOZAR they bring the Belgian premiere of a new arrangement (for piano four hands and string orchestra) of the First Piano Quartet by Brahms.
Israeli pianists Sivan Silver and her partner Gil Garburg set a new standard in the art of piano duo playing. Praised by both audiences and critics, the duo is repeatedly invited by top orchestras, festivals and concert organizers. They have performed concerts in more than 70 countries, spread across five continents, in halls such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wiener Musikverein, Festspielhaus Salzburg, Sydney Opera House and the Berlin Philharmonie. Orchestras with which they regularly collaborate include the Israel Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Melbourne Symphony and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie.
Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg each began building promising solo careers some 20 years ago when they first met. They quickly became partners and then began playing together. The beginning of a true success story … Today they describe their unique symbiosis as follows: "we express our own emotions and at the same time also a combined sensitivity. We are one and yet in dialogue with each other, that is the magic."
Belgian premiere of a new concerto, based on Brahms
Silver and Garburg have an extensive discography, with acclaimed recordings including Mendelssohn's concertos for two pianos and orchestra (2009), arrangements of Stravinsky's ballets (Petrouchka/ Le sacre du printemps, 2015) and works by Schumann, Liszt and Saint-Saëns (Illumination, 2019). A few years ago, they joined forces with the Wiener Symphoniker under the direction of Florian Krumpöck. Their goal? A recording of the world premiere of a new concerto written especially for them and also dedicated to them: Richard Dünser's arrangement of Brahms' First Piano Quartet. The recording took place at the Wiener Konzerthaus and was released in 2020.
With this work, Brahms' First Piano Quartet, arranged for piano four hands and string orchestra by Richard Dünser, Silver and Garburg come to BOZAR on 10 February. Before and after the concert, our partner La boîte a musique will sell CDs by Silver and Garburg. After the concert, the piano duo will take time for a signing session.
Enigma Variations under the direction of Constantin Trinks
The concert by Silver and Garburg on Friday 10 February is also the debut of German conductor Constantin Trinks. He comes from Karlsruhe where he studied Conducting with Wolf-Dieter Hauschild and Piano with Günter Reinhold. In 2002 he became 'Kapellmeister' at the Saarländisches Staatstheater, after which he quickly rose to interim music director (2006-2009). Between 2009 and 2012, Constantin Trinks was music director of the Staatstheater Darmstadt, where he not only conducted his first Ring cycle but also Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Parsifal, Fidelio and Aida. Today he is a much sought-after opera conductor with productions this season at the Royal Opera House in London (Don Giovanni), Teatro San Carlo in Naples (Tristan und Isolde), the Leipzig Opera (Lohengrin), the Tokyo Opera (Salome), the Montpellier Opera (Die Zauberflöte) and the Sofia Opera (Pique Dame). With the Hamburg Opera under choreographer John Neumeier, he is currently working on a Beethoven project featuring tenor Klaus Florian Vogt in the lead role. As for symphonic music, Constantin Trinks has already performed with the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Münchner Philharmoniker.
On Friday 10 February, Constantin Trinks will venture into, among other works, the well-known Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar. The Enigma Variations consist of a theme ("the enigma") and fourteen variations, each dedicated to specific friends of the composer. Edward Elgar imagined how his friends would react to a particular subject and translated those reactions into music. He dedicated the first variation to his wife, the last variation to himself. A second work that the Belgian National Orchestra under the direction of Constantin Trinks will perform – besides the premiere of the Brahms concerto with Silver and Garburg – are the Matinées Musicales by Benjamin Britten (Op. 24).