Prepare yourselves for an unforgettable experience on Saturday 10th February, as the 2024 InClassica International Music Festival, organised by SAMIT Event Group, presents a special classical music concert featuring three internationally-acclaimed musicians in a trio recital. Taking place at the UAE’s illustrious Dubai Opera, audiences in attendance will be able to witness a star-studded collaboration between Japanese violinist Daishin Kashimoto, Artistic Director of the Le Pont Music Festival, and First Prize winner at the 1994 Cologne International Violin Competition, 1996 Fritz Kreisler Competition, and 1996 Long-Thibaud International Competition, Italian pianist Enrico Pace, Grammy Award nominee, and winner of the 1989 Utrecht International Franz Liszt Piano Competition, and Armenian/UK cellist Alexander Chaushian, winner of the 12th International Tchaikovsky Competition, and the ARD Competition in Germany; Artistic Director of the International Pharos Chamber Music Festival and the Yerevan Music Festival, and Cello professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. These three maestros will be interpreting Composer-in-Residence Alexey Shor’s acclaimed Piano Trio in B-minor, before turning to the famed Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, written by German composer Johannes Brahms in 1886 while on holiday in Switzerland. Finally, the trio will turn to Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1, composed in 1839, and widely regarded as one of Mendelssohn's most accomplished, and indeed, most popular, chamber pieces.
Enrico Pace was born in Rimini, Italy. He studied piano with Franco Scala at the Rossini Conservatory, Pesaro, where he graduated in Conducting and Composition too, and later at the Accademia Pianistica “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola, with Lazar Berman and Boris Petrushansky.
Jacques De Tiège was a valued mentor.
Winning the Utrecht International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in 1989 marked the beginning of his international career.
Since then Enrico Pace has toured extensively, performing in cities such as Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Milan (Sala Verdi and Teatro alla Scala), Rome, Berlin, London (Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre),Paris, Madrid, Munich, Salzburg, Prague, Korea, Japan and various cities in US and South America.
Enrico Pace greatly enjoys chamber music and has played with violinists Liza Ferschtman, Akiko Suwanai, Kristóf Barati, Mihaela Martin, Ragnhild Hemsing and A. Conunova; cellists Frans Helmerson, István Várdai, Alexander Chaushian, Sung-Won Yang, Daniel Müller-Schott, Julian Steckel and clarinetist Sharon Kam. He participates regularly in chamber music festivals and has visited Delft, Moritzburg, Risør, Kuhmo, Stresa, Verbier, Lucerne, Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein among others. Enrico Pace enjoys a long term partnership with violinist Leonidas Kavakos: with him he recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas for piano and violin. With violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann he recorded the complete Sonatas for violin and piano by J.S. Bach for Sony Classical. In 2011 the label Piano Classics released his solo recording of Franz Liszt’s Annéees de pèlerinage “Suisse” and “Italie”. With cellist Sun-Won Yang he has recorded works by Schumann, Brahms, Chopin and Liszt. Recently their complete Beethoven Cello and piano music has been released by Decca. He’s teaching regularly at the Imola and Pinerolo Music Academies.
Both as the soloist of international orchestras and as a sought-after chamber musician, Daishin Kashimoto is a regular guest of major concert halls around the globe. The tremendous wealth of experience gained in over 15 years as first concert master of the Berliner Philharmoniker benefits him in his equally adept role as a soloist, where he plays a wide repertoire ranging from classical to new music. Last season, Daishin Kashimoto performed Bruch's Violin Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fabio Luisi, and appeared with the City of Birmingham Orchestra as well as the NDR Radio Philharmonic. In the summer of 2022, his tour of Japan with the Gürzenich Orchestra under the baton of François-Xavier Roth took him to renowned Japanese concert halls, including Suntory Hall in Tokyo. A highlight of this season is the world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa's new violin concerto Prayer with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Philharmonie Berlin in March 2023, followed by the Swiss premiere at the KKL Luzern with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in June. An Asian tour with the City of Birmingham Orchestra is scheduled for the end of the season.
Daishin Kashimoto has appeared with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, the Bavarian, Hessian, and West German Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Yehudi Menuhin, Paavo Järvi, Myung-Whun Chung, Daniel Harding, and Philippe Jordan. He can also be heard as a soloist in concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Past engagements include Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante at the Grafenegg Festival and Lucerne Festival, Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, and Tchaikovsky's Sérénade Mélancolique and Valse Scherzo at Berlin's Waldbühne under direction of Andris Nelsons. As a chamber musician Daishin Kashimoto has appeared alongside Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang, Leif Ove Andsnes, Alessio Bax, Emmanuel Pahud, Itamar Golan, Tabea Zimmermann, Yefim Bronfman, Claudio Bohórquez and Konstantin Lifschitz, among others. With Konstantin Lifschitz, he also recorded a highly acclaimed CD of Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas in 2014. His other recordings include a CD of Brahms’ Violin Concerto with the Staatskapelle Dresden under Myung Whun Chung for Sony Music.
His parents introduced him to various instruments early on, with the three-year-old opting for the violin and receiving his first lessons in Tokyo. After moving to the United States, Daishin Kashimoto was accepted, at the tender age of seven, as the youngest student to ever attend Julliard School's pre-college program; at age eleven, he transferred to the Lübeck University of Music under Zakhar Bron, before becoming a student of Rainer Kussmaul at the Freiburg University of Music from 1999 to 2004. He also had great success in major competitions as a teenager, taking first prize at the Menuhin Junior International Competition in 1993, the Cologne Violin Competition in 1994, and in 1996 at the Vienna Fritz Kreisler and the Long-Thibaud Competitions. Daishin Kashimoto has been the artistic director of the Le Pont Music Festival in Ako and Himeji (Japan) since 2007. He plays on a del Gesu 1744 "de Beriot" kindly loaned by Crystco, Inc. and its chairman Mr. Hikaru Shimura.
Now regarded as one of the finest cellists of the younger generation, Alexander Chaushian has performed extensively throughout the world as a soloist with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Academy of St Martin-in- the-Fields, The London Mozart Players, The Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, The Boston Pops and The Armenian Philharmonic, and has given highly acclaimed performances in such venues as London’s Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall, Sala Verdi Milan, Konzerthaus Vienna, Suntory Hall Japan, the main Carnegie Hall New York, and Symphony Hall Boston.
He performs regularly in festivals throughout the world and is the Artistic Director of the International Pharos Chamber Music Festival in Cyprus and the Yerevan Music Festival in Armenia.
After initial studies in Armenia, Alexander Chaushian studied in the UK at the Menuhin School and the Guildhall School, London. He then pursued advanced studies at the Hochschule Berlin, graduating with distinction in 2005. He is a laureate prize winner of many international competitions including the 12th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the ARD Competition in Germany. As an alumnus of Young Concert Artists, New York, he toured extensively in the USA. Amongst the many distinguished musicians whom he has collaborated with are Yehudi Menuhin, Julia Fischer, Levon Chilingirian, Yuri Bashmet, Diemut Poppen, François-Frédéric Guy, Emmanuel Pahud. His regular chamber music partner is Yevgeny Sudbin.
Alexander’s recordings include several highly acclaimed CDs for the BIS label in which he is partnered by Yevgeny Sudbin, and his recently released concerto CD with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, also on BIS, received rave reviews and was selected ‘Album of the Week’ by the Independent. His many concerts during this season include performances in France, Italy, Switzerland, Brazil, China and Japan.
“Alexander Chaushian firmly establishes himself in the echelons of international cellists” — The Strad