Borusan Arts and Culture opens season with Güher and Süher Pekinel

ISTANBUL hürriyet daily news

Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates its 15th year this season, the program will also host many foreign guests. A concert series of BIPO and Beethoven Festival will bring all the piano works and sonatas of Rudolf Buchbinder.

The Borusan Culture and Arts 2013–2014 season is set to start with a rich program full of concerts. The opening concert of the season will be performed on Oct. 10 by the Pekinel sisters, Güher and Süher, who attracted up to 30,000 people to their 19 concerts last season.

While the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra (BIPO) celebrates its 15th year this season, the program will also host many foreign guests. A concert series of BIPO and Beethoven Festival will bring all the piano works and sonatas of Rudolf Buchbinder to Istanbul. The Borusan Quartet will open the season at Süreyya Opera.

The Borusan Music House will be hosting many different music sounds such as jazz, electronic, classic and world music together in one venue. The music house will continue to host contemporary music projects, and to provide opportunities for young talents to meet their audience and present established names to their dedicated fans.

Speaking at the press conference, Borusan Culture and Arts director Ahmet Erenli said they aimed to bring many artists on stage together during their 15th year.

“A few years ago, the idea of listening to Roberto Alagna in Istanbul was just a dream, but right now we have the opportunity to welcome world musicians and stars,” Erenli said.

World stars meet with BIPO

BIPO conductor and art director Sascha Goetzel will be conducting BİPO for the fifth time and will celebrate the 15th year of the orchestra with works by Beethoven.

Pianists Murray Perahia , Rudolf Buchbinder, and Markus Schirmer; violinists Christian Tetzlaff, Nicola Benedetti, and Leonard Elschenbroich are among the stars of this year’s Borusan Arts and Culture season.

A performance of Wagner’s epic opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen will be staged on Nov. 7. Russian piano star Alexei Volodin, and violinist Valeriy Sokolov, who has been given awards such as the Diapason d’Or, will be featured in the performance. Ünüşan Kuloğlu and Tuncay Kurtoğlu will share the stage with BIPO’s honorary conductor, Gürer Aykal for the performance.

Grammy award winner and also the winner of several Gramophone awards, Murray Perahia, will also be on stage at the festival. Perahia has previously recorded a performance Chopin’s études, and Schubert’s late piano sonatas. He is currently editing a new Urtext edition of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.

Besides his solo career, he is active in chamber music and appeared regularly with the Guarneri and Budapest String Quartets. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, with which he records and performs. Since his return during the 2008 BBC Proms season, Perahia has been continually active on the concert scene.

He will be on stage with BIPO on Jan. 16 to play Schumann.

Renowned pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk will play Prokofiev’s 3rd Piano Concerto on Feb. 20.

Valeriy Sokolov will be the guest of BIPO on Feb. 27 and will be playing Prokofiev and Strauss with Gürer Aykal. In recent seasons he has appeared regularly with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, and at the Aspen Festival, and made debuts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Cleveland Orchestra. Conductors with whom he has worked include David Zinman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ivor Bolton and Ludovic Morlot.

Young musicians Nicola Benedetti and Leonard Elschenbroich will also be on stage for BIPO this season.

Leyla Gencer commemoration concert

This year, BIPO’s annual “Leyla Gencer concert” will be a performance of Puccini’s opera “Tosca.” The opera will be staged by Yekta Kara with soprano Maria José Siri, tenor Alex Vicens and baritone Eralp Kıyıcı, on March 20.

One of the best pianists of Austria, Markus Schirmer, will be on stage on March 24 to play Benjamin Britten’s 1st Piano Concerto with guest conductor James Judd. This year BİPO and the Beethoven Festival will also host Christian Tetzlaff , Alexei Volodin, Alois Glassner, the Salzburg Bach Choir, soprano Ruth Ziesak, mezzosoprano Daniela Lehner, tenor Richard Croft and bases David Soar. The festival will also host the Zeynep Tanbay Dans Project who will perform with the Borusan Quartet.

EXCLUSIVE EVENT FOR THE 15TH YEAR

This year, Borusan celebrates its 15th year with famous tenor Roberto Alagna. After winning the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, an initiative backed by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, that started in Modena in 1988, Alagna made his professional debut as Alfredo Germont in La Traviatawith the Glyndebourne touring company. This led to many engagements throughout smaller cities across France and Italy, mainly again as Alfredo, a role he would eventually sing over 150 times. His reputation grew and he was soon invited to sing at major theaters such as La Scala in 1990, Covent Garden in 1992, and the Metropolitan Opera in 1996. His performances of Roméo in Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod at Covent Garden in 1994 (opposite Leontina Vaduva) catapulted him to international stardom. In recent years, Alagna has been an advocate of restoring to prominence neglected French operas - Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac,” Massenet’s “Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame,” Lalo’s “Fiesque,” and new works - Vladimir Cosma’s “Marius et Fanny” and his brother David Alagna’s “Le dernier jour d’un condamné.” He has also recorded light music with an homage album to Luis Mariano, Sicilien, and Pasión.