THE AURORA PIANO QUARTET
The Aurora Quartet, founded by Ms Julia
Severus in 2002 is an international ensemble
of pianists that takes up a great tradition:
in the music circles of the aristocracy and
in the concert life of the 19th century, music
for four pianists was highly popular. Many
ambitious and brilliant compositions and transcriptions
were being created. Many virtuosos
were enthusiastic about performing music
for eight hands: It is well known that Chopin
and Liszt used to perform to perform music
for eight hands with colleagues, as they did,
for example, in 1838 in Rouen playing such
a transcription of Beethoven’s 8th symphony.
The repertoire of the Aurora Quartett consists
of both original compositions from the 19th to the 21st century and a special
focus on contemporary composers and transcriptions of works for orchestra.
The ensemble has made its successful debuts at the Bayreuth Easter
Festival, the Musikfestspiele Potsdam-Sanssouci, the Konzerthaus Berlin,
the Musikinstrumentenmuseum Berlin, the Lindeman Hall Oslo and
the Festival East-West at the Philharmonia of Zielona Gora and in 2005
was awarded a prize at of the Norwegian Composers Association. In September
2006, it will perform the world premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s
“Hommage a Chopin” at the Konserthus Oslo. In 2006, two CDs with first
recordings of music for two pianos eight hands have been released: “Russian
Romanticism” with works by Tchaikovsky, Balakirew and Glazounov
(Naxos), and “Works for 4 Pianists” with Norwegian compositions from
the 20th and 21st centuries (2 L). |