K r z y s z t o f S
m i e t a n a
Krzysztof
Smietana was born in Poland and studied at the Cracow
Academy with Z Szlezer and at the Guildhall School of
Music & Drama with Yfrah Neaman. He won most of the
national awards in Poland and has been prize-winner in
several major international violin competitions. He has
made many recital and concerto appearances in Britain and
abroad including at the BBC Proms, and has performed both
Szymanowski’s violin concertos with the BBC SO. He has
recorded the Panufnik violin concerto with London Musici
and the Stravinsky violin concerto with the Philarmonia,
as well as Fauré and Brahms sonatas with Caroline Palmer,
and piano trios of Panufnik, Twardowski and Malawski.
D i m i
t a r B u r o vDimitar Burov made his debut as a soloist with the Varna Philharmonic In 1987 he was awarded first prize in the “N. Simeonova” Competition. Later that year he also won first prize in the “National Competition for Young Talents” in Sofia, following which he was invited to record the Chausson’s “Poeme” for the Sofia Radio, a performance which was hailed as “intensely expressive and powerful”.
In 1988 Dimitar was awarded a full scholarship from the British Council to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with Professor Yfrah Neaman. Since graduating the Advanced Solo Study course there, he has pursued a busy career both as a teacher and performer of violin and viola, and is at present Head of Strings at Harrow School.
Dimitar led the Lancing Piano Trio and performs regularly at music festivals and music societies throughout the country. More recently he has released a CD of chamber music featuring works by Mozart, Frank and Prokofiev. He has successfully toured Germany, Finland, Hungary and Turkey and regularly performs in Bulgaria.
D a v i d G r e e n l e e s
David Greenlees is assistant Principal Viola with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, having been Principal Viola of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. He has performed as guest principal with many UK orchestras, including the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and the English Chamber Orchestra. His recording of Don Quixote by Richard Strauss with Lynn Harrell and Gerard Schwarz for RLPO Live received great international acclaim.
L
e o n i d G o r o k h o vLeonid Gorokhov studied at the St Petersburg Conservatoire from where he won a clutch of prizes in both Eastern and Western Europe including the European Prize for Cultural Acheivement which "recognises exceptional talent and outstanding artistic accomplishment". In 1991 he appeared as soloist with the St Petersburg Philharmonic conducted by Lord Menuhin. Their strong musical rapport led to further concerto engagements with leading orchestras in Europe and the UK. In 1995 he made a triumphal return to Russia playing the Elgar cello concerto with the Philharmonia Hungarica again conducted by Menuhin. He has also been invited to perform at such prestigious festivals as Bastad, Budapest Spring, Davos, Evian, Gstaad, Harrogate, Interlaken, Kuhmo, Ljubljana, Macau, Perth (Scotland), Schleswig-Holstein and Spoleto.
C o l i n S t o n e
Colin Stone first came to prominence in 1986 when he won the Royal Over-Seas League Piano Competition in London, his performance of Liszt's Dante Sonata at the Queen Elizabeth Hall being a notable triumph. In the same year, encouragement at the Busoni competition in Italy and a highly acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut launched his career as a soloist. At the final of the prestigious Young Concert Artists Trust audition a year earlier, the famous conductor Sir Charles Groves praised the young pianist for his 'rare musical qualities and tipped him to succeed at the very highest level'. Many concerto engagements followed including Mozart's K271 in a tour of Italy with the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Beethoven's Emperor at the Sheldonian Theatre, the two Brahms concerti, the Schumann at St. John Smith's Square, the Tchaikovsky B flat minor, Rachmaninov's 2nd, both Shostakovich concerti and the Cesar Frank with Grant Llewellyn and the National Centre for Orchestral Studies Orchestra.In 1989 he made his debut on BBC Radio 3 and, following the success of his live Concert Hall broadcast in 1990 and the subsequent Prokofiev series, is regularly invited to record for Radio 3. In 1992 a tour of Canada a recording of a live recital at Concordia University for CBS in Montreal preceded a series of recordings for Pickwick's IMP Masters label with the recently formed London Mozart Trio.