Wednesday 28 April 2010, Strovolos Municipal Theatre, Lefkosia, 20:30
Thursday 29 April 2010, Markideion Theatre, Pafos, 20:30
Friday 30 April 2010, Rialto Theatre, Lemesos, 20:30
Soloist: Allison Eldredge (cello)
Conductor: David Afkham
Programme:
M. Arnold: Sinfonietta No.1, Op. 48
E. Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
J. Brahms: Symphony No.4, Op. 98
€12 and pensioners €7
Free entrance for students, soldiers and EURO<26 card holders
Tickets available at the Theatres’ box office
Born in New York City, Allison Eldredge gave her first public recital at the age 9. By the time she was 19, she had won the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant and Musical America’s “Young Artist of the Year” Award. She has since been compared to the great cello masters receiving critical acclaim for her technical ease and her impassioned performances in the premier concert halls of North America, Europe, Israel, Latin America and the Far East. Following her debut performance with the Chicago Symphony and conductor Daniel Barenboim, the Chicago Tribune heralded Ms. Eldredge as “a musician of remarkable gifts”. Ms. Eldredge has performed as soloist with many of the world’s great orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, Boston Pops, New World Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, China National Symphony, Berlin Symphony, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Hague Philharmonic, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. She has been the featured soloist of orchestral tours including a North American and European tour with the Warsaw Sinfonia under Krzysztof Penderecki where the Chicago Tribune raved “Eldredge…dazzling in her rendition of this one movement concerto (Penderecki)…the concerto is a tour de force for a cellist who is capable of displaying as wide an aural palette as Eldredge can.”. She has toured England with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, including a concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall; and has made four tours of Israel with the Haifa Symphony. Of special interest was a tour of Russia with the Moscow Virtuosi and Vladimir Spivakov, culminating in a nationally televised gala concert, at the Moscow Conservatory Grand Hall. She has toured every music capital of Eastern Europe with such orchestras as the Ukraine State Symphony and twelve cities of Western Europe with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. In 2004, she was appointed as Artistic Director of the Killington Music Festival in Vermont, a summer music festival now in its 28th year.
As assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, David Afkham is said to be one of the most inspired young talents to appear from Germany of his generation. He is currently the first “Bernard Haitink Fund for Young Talent” recipient and works regularly with his mentor Bernard Haitink and with the Chicago Symphony and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras. Engagements for the Season 2009/10 include appearances with the Gustavo Mahler Jugend Orchester, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Jena Philharmonic and the Wuerttembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, among others. He has diverse conducting experiences including the London Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Civic Orchestra and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. He has also appeared with the Staatskapelle Weimar, Critical Orchestra Berlin and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. For the past two years, David Afkham has been the artistic director and chief conductor of the KHG-Symphony-Orchestra Freiburg. Born 1983 in Freiburg, Germany, he received his first piano and violin lessons at the age of six. In 2002 he won first prize in the solo-piano category of the German National Piano Competition “Jugend Musiziert”. David Afkham began his musical studies (piano, music-theory and conducting) at the age of 15 at the University of Music, Freiburg. Since 2005 he studied conducting at the Liszt School of Music in Weimar, Germany. He is a conducting fellow of the “Richard Wagner Association” Bayreuth and recently became a member of the “Conductor’s Forum” of the German Music Council. David Afkham is the winner of the 2008 International Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London and lives both in Weimar and London.
