4 June 2015
Kolarac Endowment at 8 p.m.
Thursday 4 June at 8 p.m.
Kolarac Endowment
RTS Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Ronald Zollman
Soloist: Nataša Veljković, piano
The programme:
Vladimir Tošić: Medial 623
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 94 in G major – ‘Surprise’
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
The Belgrade concert audience has been an admirer of the pianist Nataša Veljković since her first performances in early childhood. Her international career gained a lot of momentum after winning the first and only prize at one of the biggest piano competitions ‘Clara Haskil’ in 1985.
She has collaborated with renowned European orchestras, including the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Zagreb Soloists, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, Janáček Philharmonic from Ostrava, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, RAI Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic, Belgrade Philharmonic, Belgrade String Orchestra ‘Dušan Skovran’, St. George Strings...
She has performed as a soloist with many distinguished conductors, including David Zinman, Lawrence Foster, Dmitri Kitayenko, Cristian Mandeal, Marcello Viotti, Anthony Witt, David Shallon, Emil Tabakov and Martin Sieghart.
She performed at international festivals in Switzerland, Germany, France (MIDEM classique in Cannes…), Poland (Chopin Festival), Portugal, at all the most important festivals in the former Yugoslavia and at numerous festivals in Austria.
Nataša Veljković is a professor of piano performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and a member of the jury at numerous prestigious competitions in Europe.
Ronald Zollman (1950) is a Belgian conductor with a significant international career in which Belgrade is one of the regular stops. After studying in Antwerp and Brussels, he trained with Igor Markevitch and Nadia Boulanger. Between 1989 and 1993, he was the artistic director of the Belgian National Orchestra, from 1994 to 2002, the music director of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Philharmonic Orchestra (Orquestra Filarmonica de la UNAM), and then until 2005, the artistic director of the Northern Israel Haifa Symphony Orchestra. Since 2009, he has been teaching at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music in Pittsburgh, USA, and since 2011, he has been hired as Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Zollman performed with many major orchestras around the world: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony (Bamberger Symphoniker), Spanish National Orchestra, symphony orchestras of the Polish, Czech and Swedish Radio Television, as well as symphony orchestras of San Diego, Sydney, Shanghai, Tokyo, The Hague. He conducted at the National Opera of Belgium, the English National Opera, and the Scottish Opera.
He recorded the soundtrack for the film ‘The Music Teacher’ (Le maître de musique) with José Van Damme, which was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Film. He also recorded the opera Prince of Homburg by H. W. Henze (Der Prinz von Homburg) and Mozart's Don Giovanni (Banff Festival) for the BBC.
In the past season as well as this one, Belgrade composer and multimedia artist Vladimir Tošić celebrates two important jubilees: 45 years of artistic work and 65 years of life.
He completed his composition studies with Vasilije Mokranjac at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, where he is presently a full-time professor.
His music has been performed at numerous festivals in France, USA, Brazil, Italy, Peru, Germany and other countries. He was awarded first prize at the Thomas Bloch composition contest (Paris, 2000).
Vladimir Tošić's works are generally composed according to reductionist principles of composing. All his works are based on a very small number of different elements, and sometimes even on only one (color, rhythm, harmony...). Significant features of his compositions are the procedural organization of the musical flow, the symmetrical arc form, repetitiveness and insistence on color.