World-leading violinist Maxim Vengerov brings Sunday Classics season to a stunning close

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1 PRESS RELEASE World-leading violinist Maxim Vengerov brings Sunday Classics season to a stunning close Würth Philharmonic Orchestra with Maxim Vengerov Sunday Classics at Usher Hall, Edinburgh 3:00pm, Sunday 3 June 2018 Maxim Vengerov Photo Credit: B. Ealovega IMAGES HERE

2 No matter if it s for his flawless artistry or breathtaking virtuosity, violinist Maxim Vengerov is rightly hailed as one of the world s great players - ***** The Scotsman Vengerov plays with such innate ease that difficulty doesn t really register The Washington Post The in-demand violinist Maxim Vengerov is both soloist and conductor in this wonderful Season finale Universally hailed as one of the world s finest musicians, and often referred to as the greatest living string player in the world, Grammy award-winner Maxim Vengerov enjoys international acclaim as a conductor as well as being one of the most in-demand soloists in all of classical music. Audiences have the chance to experience him performing in both of these capacities at the Usher Hall in our final Sunday Classics concert of the season. In the first half Vengerov takes on the solo role in Bruch s magnificent violin concerto. The piece is one of Bruch s most popular, and overshadowed his other works so much that in the in the end the composer could no longer listen to it. What s more, he had sold the piece outright to publisher Cranz and so couldn t continue to make any money from the royalties of his most popular work. Vengerov returns in the second half to conduct the musicians of the Würth Philharmonic in Shostakovich s tenth symphony, an astounding achievement in symphonic form and a vitriolic indictment of life under Stalin. In 1948, Shostakovich was accused of writing inappropriate, non-russian music and thus his writing output supressed. It was only upon Stalin s death in 1953 that he could regain his creative freedom and his tenth symphony is the sound of that new-found liberty and a reflection on the Stalin years. The Würth Philharmonic is a newly formed ensemble, founded by philanthropist Reinhold Würth to bring together some of the world s most talented, young musicians to form a virtuosic symphony orchestra performing with today s greatest conductors and soloists. Würth s vision is, in uncertain political times, to bring together musicians from all nations, overcoming the tensions that so often appear across the world. The esteemed Greek conductor Stamatia Karampini leads the first half of the concert. Karampini was something of a child-prodigy, having learned the piano at 5 and beginning conducting youth orchestras from the age of 13. She has since has won many prestigious conducting prizes throughout her teenage years and into her twenties. The famous Italian author Quirino Principe wrote an essay dedicated to Karampini, proclaiming "...this young woman s life is a rare example of artistic asceticism; leading a life entirely dedicated to music and marked by countless sacrifices. Listings Information Würth Philharmonic Orchestra with Maxim Vengerov Sunday Classics at Usher Hall, Edinburgh Sunday 3 June, 2018 Door time: 2:00pm, Start time: 3:00pm

3 J Strauss Die Fledermaus Overture Bruch Violin Concerto No.1 Saint Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Shostakovich Symphony No.10 Stamatia Karampini Conductor (first half) Maxim Vengerov Conductor (second half) Maxim Vengerov violin /ENDS More information, photos, interviews or press review tickets please contact: Susie Gray, The Corner Shop PR, Will Moss, The Corner Shop PR, / Maxim Vengerov Universally hailed as one of the world s finest musicians, and often referred to as the greatest living string player in the world today, Grammy award winner Maxim Vengerov also enjoys international acclaim as a conductor and is one of the most in-demand soloists in all of classical music. Born in 1974, he began his career as a solo violinist at the age of 5, won the Wieniawski and Carl Flesch international competitions at ages 10 and 15 respectively, studied with Galina Tourchaninova and Zakhar Bron, made his first recording at the age of 10, and went on to record extensively for high-profile labels including Melodia, Teldec and EMI, earning among others, Grammy and Gramophone artist of the year awards. Tireless in his search for new means of creative expression, Maxim Vengerov has let himself be inspired by many different styles of music, including baroque, jazz and rock and in 2007 followed in the footsteps of his mentors, the late Mstislav Rostropovich and Daniel Barenboim and turned his attention to conducting. Mr Vengerov has since conducted major orchestras around the world including the Montreal and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, and in 2010 was appointed the first chief conductor of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra. He went on to further his studies with Yuri Simonov, an exponent of the Russian-German conducting school, and graduated as a conductor with a diploma of excellence from the Moscow Institute of Ippolitov-Ivanov in June He has since enrolled in a further 2-year program of opera conducting - scheduled to conduct his first performance of Eugene Onegin in Brisbane in November and Moscow in December In the last few seasons Maxim Vengerov has performed as soloist and/or conductor with many major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, often performing a major violin concerto in the first half and conducting a symphonic work in the second, including Rimsky-Korsakov s Scheherazade, in which he also performs the violin solos saw the launch of the annual Vengerov Festival in Tokyo with a series of recitals, concerts and masterclasses, combining Mr Vengerov s passion for conducting, performing and teaching, as well as an artist residency at the Barbican Centre London. That season Mr

4 Vengerov also accepted his current position as Artist in Residence with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2014/15 Mr Vengerov opened the concert seasons of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and Shanghai s newest Symphony Hall alongside Maestro Long Yu and pianist Lang Lang. He also returned to the New York Philharmonic to a hero s welcome (New York Times), as well as toured and recorded the Tchaikovsky concerto with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Myung-Whun Chung. The 2015/16 season highlights saw Mr Vengerov in concert with the New York and Munich Philharmonic orchestras as well as complete five recital tours in Australia, Canada, Asia, Europe and South America. In the 2016/17 season Mr Vengerov will return to Australia to open the season of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and to conduct the season finale of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, with whom he will return as Artist in Residence in Further guest conducting engagements will include appearances with the RTE Orchestra Dublin, Munich Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. The coming season will also see a European tour with the Toronto Symphony orchestra and performances at the Park concerts with the New York Philharmonic in New York and Shanghai. As one of Mr Vengerov s greatest passions is the teaching and encouraging of young talent, he has held various teaching positions around the world and is currently Ambassador and visiting Professor of the Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland (IMMA) and as of September 2016, the Polonsky Visiting Professor of Violin at the Royal College of Music in London - the UK s leading conservatoire. Furthermore, in keeping with his belief that competitions are a platform to launch young artists international careers, Mr Vengerov has served on numerous juries including the Donatella Flick conducting competition, the Menuhin Violin Competition and in May 2013 conducted the finals during the Montreal International Violin Competition. Owing to his success as chairman of the prestigious Wieniawski Violin Competition in 2011, where he auditioned live over 200 musicians in nine world capitals, Mr Vengerov has been unprecedentedly re-elected to return as chairman in In 1997 Mr Vengerov became the first classical musician to be appointed International Goodwill Ambassador by UNICEF, which has enabled him to continue to inspire children worldwide through music. In this role he has performed for disadvantaged children and communities in Uganda, Thailand, the Balkans and Turkey, whilst helping to raise funds for many UNICEF-assisted programs. He is also a patron of the MIAGI project in South Africa, which connects children of different ethnic backgrounds through music. Mr Vengerov has been profiled in a series of documentaries, including Playing by Heart, which was recorded by Channel Four Television and screened at the Cannes Television Festival in 1999, and Living the Dream, which was released worldwide and received the Gramophone Award for Best Documentary in Mr Vengerov has received prestigious fellowships and honours from a number of institutions, including the Royal Academy of Music and orders of merit from both Romania and Germany s Saarland, and in 2012 was awarded an Honorary Visiting Fellowship at Trinity College Oxford. Mr Vengerov has also received numerous awards including Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra) (2003), two Gramophone awards (1994, 1995), a Classical Brit Award (2004), five Edison Classical Music Awards (1995, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2004), two ECHO awards (1997, 2003) and a World Economic Forum Crystal award

5 (2007) - honouring artists who have used their art to improve the state of the world. Mr Vengerov plays the ex-kreutzer Stradivari (1727). Würth Philharmonic The Würth Philharmonic is named after the great philanthropist Prof. Dr. Reinhold Würth, who has brought together some of the world s most talented, young musicians to form a virtuosic symphony orchestra performing with today s greatest conductors and soloists. Prof Wurth s vision, in a time of political stress, is to bring together musicians from all nations, overcoming the tensions that so often appear across the world. The conductors and soloists currently engaged by the orchestra to perform with them over the next season include Maxim Vengerov, Kent Nagano, Lars Vogt and Dennis Russell Davies. The Würth Philharmonic s ambition is to create one of Europe s must exciting ensembles of young musicians. The UK tour is the first of many international tours that the orchestra will undertake. Stamatia Karampini Stamatia Karampini is a symphony and opera conductor. She comes from a family of engineers and architects, a path she would have followed herself, had she not shown a strong proclivity towards classical music since the age of four. Karampini was born in Athens Greece, but grew up in Crete and Thessaly. At the age of 5, she started learning the piano, the cello and eventually voice and composition. She started conducting youth orchestras, ensembles and choirs at the early age of 13 and during her school vacations she would participate in International Masterclasses in Europe. Karampini studied Orchestra and Opera conducting under Prof. Hermann Michael at Munich's Hochschule für Musik, where she graduated as the youngest with high honors in her class, specializing in opera conducting. She went on to receive a Master's degree from the same institution. After two more years as a student of Prof. Jorma Panula at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm where she received the postgraduate Diploma in conducting, specializing in the music of the 19th and 20th century music. At 19, Karampini won First Prize at the Alexandra Triantis conducting competition in Athens. In 1999 she became a recipient of the Richard Wagner scholarship in Bayreuth. Since, she has won a variety of prizes at international conducting competitions, such as the 2005 Nikolai Malko, and the Mitropoulos in As part of St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary celebrations in 2003, Karampini received an honorary degree from the Prokofiev Organization for her exceptional performances of Prokofiev with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. In 2011 as a finalist, she won the "Prix du Public" at the International Competition in Besancon. Hermann Michael referred to her as "perhaps the most impressive conductor after Mitropoulos to emerge from Greece", and Zubin Mehta has called her "one to watch". In addition, the famous Italian author Quirino Principe wrote an essay dedicated to Karampini ( "...this young woman s life is a rare example of artistic asceticism; leading a life entirely dedicated to music and marked by countless sacrifices...") When Karampini was 26, she received a personal invitation from Kurt Masur to share with

6 him the podium at the Orchestre National de France. She rose to the task with tremendous success. As the Altamusica review noted: The young Greek conductor Stamatia Karampini performed Shostakovich s 5th Symphony with an astonishing level of intensity and structure, exhibiting a profound knowledge of the work with a passion previously demonstrated by conductors of the caliber of Mravinski, Kondrachine, Ancerl, Sanderling, Bernstein and more recently, Haitink. From start to finish, she remained in complete control of the orchestra, wielding the baton with extraordinary precision - a phenomenal interpretation. The audience left the concert hall tonight with the impression that a new star had been born. Stamatia Karampini garnered more public attention in 2011 after her memorable participation at the International competition in Besançon. The audience s reaction was described in the press the next day as follows: " During the final performances the Greek candidate maintained her undeniable charisma, her unique gestures and a close intimate communication with the orchestra musicians. As the only one of the finalists to conduct by heart she gave the most personal interpretation of "Don Juan". She received the "Prix du Public". The audience exploded in applause, many of them standing, a reaction appropriate to a passionate interpretation and demonstration of a deep understanding of the musical material." In 2012, a 25-minute documentary about Karampini entitled Young Conductors of Tomorrow was broadcast by the cultural channel ARTE on French and German television. The same year she became a finalist at the Donatella Flick competition and conducted the London Symphony Orchestra for the first time, with Debussy s "La mer". Karampini's recent and future guest engagements include conducting the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Barcelona Symphony orchestra, the Staatstheater Darmstadt and Frankfurt, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC philharmonic, the Düsseldorf Symphony orchestra, the Orchestra and Choir Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and the Orchestre National de France. In these and many other venues, she has proven her remarkable range, which extends from the German and Viennese Schools of Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, Brahms and Richard Strauss to Bartók, Liszt, Debussy, Sibelius, Ravel, Russian composers such as Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Shostakovich, and first time performances of contemporary music as well as a wide range of operatic repertoire.