Dubai, UAE
The Savaria Symphony Orchestra join up with their former Chief Conductor, Gergely Madaras, once again on Tuesday 21st February, as they continue their stay in the UAE with a second concert at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai’s City Walk. Forming part of the 2023 InClassica International Music Festival, the orchestra and Madaras, who currently occupies the position of Music Director of Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, shall be joined by the internationally esteemed multiple-award winning Italian clarinettist Fabrizio Meloni for a highly anticipated concert built around this beautiful instrument. With a programme of works that pays homage to both the past and present, the concert promises to deliver an unforgettable evening, and will surely leave all clarinet and music lovers with many wonderful memories to cherish.
In the 2019/20 season Gergely Madaras begins his tenure as Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. As well as curating several series in Liège and at the Bozar in Brussels, his inaugural season includes three CD recordings, a continued collaboration with Mezzo HD as well as a tour to the Bucharest Enescu Festival. Gergely also continues as Chief Conductor of the Savaria Symphony Orchestra in his native Hungary, a post he occupies since 2014. He was previously music Director of the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne from 2013-2019.
Having forged strong professional relationships throughout Europe, Gergely regularly appears as a guest conductor with orchestras including the BBC Symphony, Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Lyon, Filarmonica della Scala, Maggio Muiscale Fiorentino, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Hungarian National Philharmonic and Hungarian Radio orchestras, the Copenhagen, Oslo, Bergen, Luxembourg and Warsaw National philharmonic orchestras as well as with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Münchener Kammerorchester and Academy of Ancient Music. Further afield, he has appeared with the Melbourne, Queensland and Houston Symphony orchestras.
Highlights of the 2019/20 season include Gergely’s debut with Netherlands Philharmonic at the Concertgebouw, where he will also make a second appearance for his Netherlands Radio Philharmonic debut in August 2020. Gergely has further debuts with BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the chamber orchestras of Lausanne and Geneva. Gergely returns once more to the Hallé for several UK appearances throughout the season. Other re-invitations include Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre National de Montpellier, BBC Scottish Symphony and the BBC Singers.
The previous season saw Gergely opening the 2018 Milano Musica Festival at La Scala, his debut at the Philharmonie de Paris with the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, his debuts at the Barbican and Royal Festival Hall in London as well as Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
While Gergely is grounded in the core classical and romantic repertoire, he maintains a close relationship with new music. He has collaborated closely with composers Geroge Benjamin, Péter Eötvös, György Kurtág, Tristan Murail, Luca Francesconi and Pierre Boulez, for whom he served as assistant conductor at the Lucerne Festival Academy between 2011- 2013. He conducted over 100 works written after 1970, including many world premieres.
Gergely has also established a fine reputation as an opera conductor. In 2012 he was the inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Fellow at the English National Opera. The fellowship culminated in his debut with the company, where he conducted Simon McBurney’s new production of Magic Flute at the London Coliseum. Since then he has conducted highly praised productions of Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Otello, La traviata, La Bohème and Lucia di Lammermoor at such houses as the Dutch National Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève (with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande) and Hungarian State Opera, among others. Prompted by a keen interest in re-discovering rarely performed works, Gergely has also conducted productions of Goldmark’s Ein Wintermärchen, Grieg’s Peer Gynt, Barber’s Vanessa, Donizetti’s Viva la Mamma and Offenbach’s Fantasio.
Born in Budapest in 1984, Gergely first began studying folk music with the last generation of authentic Hungarian Gipsy and peasant musicians at the age of five. He then went on to study classical flute, violin and composition, graduating from the flute faculty of the Liszt Academy in Budapest, as well as the conducting faculty of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Besides his varied musical activities, Gergely retains a deep passion for Magyar music, and is an ambitious advocate of Bartók, Kodály and Dohnányi, both at home and abroad, having conducted nearly the complete orchestral repertoire of these composers.
Fabrizio Meloni, since 1984, is the first solo clarinet chair of the Orchestra and the Philharmonic of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. He has finished his clarinet studies at Milan's Conservatorio "G. Verdi"with summa cum laude and the special mention for his artistic achievement.
Winner dozens of national and international prizes (ARD Munchen-1987- Prague – 1987-, among all), he has been partner of soloists of international reputation: Bruno Canino, Alexander Lonquich, Michele Campanella, Heinrich Schiff, Friederich Gulda, Nazzareno Carusi, Editha Gruberova, the Hagen Quartet, Myung-Whun Chung, Philip Moll and the Fine Arts Quartet. He has toured the United States and Israel with the "Quintetto a Fiati Italiano", performing works specially dedicated to this ensemble by Luciano Berio (with whom he has collaborated along the years 1989-1994) and Salvatore Sciarrino. With Nuovo Quintetto Italiano he has already toured South America and Far East, receiving enthousiastic consents of public and critic. The same success he has had in various series of concerts in Japan with Phillip Moll and I Solisti della Scala (Tokyo and Osaka), performing a program of Italian Opera's collections recorded in the CD "I Fiati all'Opera"(DAD Records).
With the ensemble I Solisti della Scala Trio he has performed all over the world. The Washington Post has written about their recital in Washington, DC: "An evening of breathtaking artistry". In 2007 he has toured Italy, Germany, the United States, Australia and Japan playing duo with the pianist Nazzareno Carusi, celebrating the anniversaries of Johannes Brahms and Domenico Scarlatti. After their performance for the Hamburg's Brahms-Gesellschaft, Cord Garben (the artistic producer of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's Deutsche Grammophone recordings) has written: "The listening to their recital has been an unforgettable adventure".
He has realised various recordings: the Sinfonia Concertante and the Concert K 622 for clarinet and orchestra with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala conducted by Riccardo Muti; Pulcherrima Ignota with the Bairav Ensemble: tribute to the tzigane music in the world; Duo Obliquo with Carl Boccadoro; the Quintetti for clarinet and strings by Mozart and Brahms; the Histoire du Soldat by Stavinskij in the double version for trio and settimino with Domenico Nordio, Giorgia Tomassi and I Solisti della Scala; the Quatuor pour la fin des temps by Messiaen with the Trio Johannes. For the most prestigious Italian musical magazine, AMADEUS, he has published the Concertos for clarinetto and orchestra by Rossini, Donizetti and Mercadante with the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona; and the two Sonatas op. 120 for piano and clarinet by Brahms with Nazzareno Carusi: this recording has been defined "skillful"by the same review. In 2009 will be released several recordings: the DVD "Duets"(Warner), the Francaix/Nielsen/Copland's Clarinet Concertos (Amadeus), and "Ol ari Nyiro Diary" (by Fabrizio Meloni & Roberto Prosseda, from novels by Kuki Gallman).
He has given masterclass for the Paris Conservatory of Music, the Advanced Conservatory of Italian Switzerland in Lugano, the Tokyo University, the New York Manhattan School, the Chicago NorthEastern Illinois University, the Academy Ca' Zenobio in Treviso, Milano Music Master and for the summer courses of Monterubbiano (AP). He also teaches for the Teatro alla Scala's Academy, the Conservatorio di Modena (Italy), the Conservatorio Vecchi A.Tonelli (Modena, Italy), Peri ( Reggio Emilia, Italy), the Conservatorio di Udine (Italy) and the Conservatorio de Musica in Zaragoza (Spain). He is author of the book "The Clarinet", published by Zecchini Editore, and prefaced by Riccardo Muti.
The Savaria Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1962, has become one of the most significant representatives of Hungarian music in the past few years. Its repertoire includes classical and romantic compositions and music from the 20th century. Besides performing as a symphony orchestra, the musicians of the ensemble frequently feature at opera galas of very high artistic standard. The orchestra regularly performs at various Hungarian and international festivals including International Bartók Festival and Seminar and the Iseum Festival. For its outstanding quality of work, the orchestra received the Béla Bartók-Ditta Pásztory Award in 1990.
The Savaria Symphony Orchestra is also renowned for being a successful performer of contemporary music. To acknowledge this fact, and to reward its remarkable success in performing and popularising Hungarian musical compositions, the orchestra was awarded the prize offered by the ARTISJUS Foundation of Music in 2001. The professional artistic standard represented by the orchestra is justified by a series of concerts broadcast in the radio, on TV and on LPs. The orchestra is well known all over Europe. It has performed in France, Germany, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Ireland, Turkey, Italy and other countries of Europe, as well as in South Korea. In the towns and cities of Austria they perform on a regular basis.
The artistic leader and chief conductor of the orchestra is Gergely Vajda, whose professionalism, both as composer and conductor, is acknowledged in Europe and in the United States of America.
