Cellopaloosa II
featuring Guest Artist Pieter Wispelwey
and VCU Faculty Dana McComb and Jason McComb
April 17, 2010: 9am-6:30pm
W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts
On Saturday, April 17, 2010, VCU Music hosted Cellopaloosa II; a workshop featuring world renowned cellist Pieter Wispelwey. Wispelwey is among the first of a generation of performers who are equally at ease on the modern or the period cello. As part of the workshop, he will teach four advanced students individually in the Young Artists Masterclass. He will also perform a recital as part of the Marianne Rennolds Concert Series. As part of this comprehensive workshop, participants will work in small groups with a Feldenkrais practitioner. Partcipants worked in sectionals with VCU cello faculty Dana McComb, and Jason McComb before performing together as a large massed cello choir. Learn more about Cellopaloosa I featuring Guest Artist Bonnie Hampton.
Biographical information
Pieter Wispelwey is among the first of a generation of performers who are equally at ease on the modern or the period cello. His acute stylistic awareness, combined with a truly original interpretation and a phenomenal technical mastery, has won the hearts of critics and public alike in repertoire ranging from JS Bach to Elliott Carter.
Born in Haarlem, Netherlands, Wispelwey’s sophisticated musical personality is rooted in the training he received: from early years with Dicky Boeke and Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam to Paul Katz in the USA and William Pleeth in Great Britain. In 1992 he became the first cellist ever to receive the Netherlands Music Prize, which is awarded to the most promising young musician in the Netherlands.
Highlights among future concerto performances include return engagements with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Dublin National Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, debuts with the Dallas Symphony, Bordeaux National Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, Milan’s Pomeriggi Musicali, Malaysia Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony and Sapporo Symphony, as well as extensive touring with the BBC Scottish Symphony, Basel Kammerorchester, and Academy of Ancient Music.
Forthcoming recital appearances include Brussel’s Conservatoire Royal, the Flanders Festival, the English Haydn Festival, as well as tours of Germany, Japan, Korea and North America. In 2009 and 2010 he will also be touring in a trio with Viktoria Mullova and Kristian Bezuidenhout.
Wispelwey’s career spans five continents and he has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including Sydney Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, St Paul’s Chamber Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon, London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Danish National Radio Symphony and Camerata Salzburg, collaborating with conductors including Ivan Fischer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Vassily Sinaisky, Paavo Berglund, Louis Langrée, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman, Libor Pesek and Sir Roger Norrington.
With regular recital appearances in London (Wigmore Hall), Paris (Châtelet, Louvre), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw, Muziekgebouw), Berlin (Konzerthaus), Milan (Societta del Quartetto), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), Sydney (Utson Hall), Los Angeles (Walt Disney Hall) and New York (Lincoln Center), Wispelwey is establishing a reputation as one of the most charismatic recitalists on the circuit. Recent recital highlights include Amsterdam’s Robeco Series, and appearances at the Quebec, Lanaudière, Wroclaw, Edinburgh, Schleswig-Holstein and Stresa Festivals.
Pieter Wispelwey’s discography, available on Channel Classics, displays an impressive line up of over twenty recordings, six of which attracted major international awards. His most recent release (Autumn 2007) is Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, recorded live in concert with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer. Future releases include the Walton Concerto (Sydney Symphony/Jeffrey Tate), Shostakovich’s Concerto No.2 (Sinfonietta Cracovia/Jurjen Hempel), and Prokofiev Symphonie Concertante op,125 (Rotterdam Philharmonic/Vassily Sinaiski).
Pieter Wispelwey plays on a 1760 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini cello and a 1710 Rombouts baroque cello.
For more information about Pieter Wispelwey, please visit his website.
