Former GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER assistant conductor Patrick Lange has been currently acclaimed for the new Freischütz production at the Komische Oper Berlin, where he is Music Director:

Read the following reviews:

Die Zeit, Christine Lemke-Matwey, 31.1.2012

Der Standard, Joachim Lange, 1.2.2012

Die „Bürger für Beethoven“ haben den Solohornisten der Staatskapelle Berlin zum Träger 2011 gewählt. Übergabe bei Benefizkonzert im Kammermusiksaal.

Vojta wird mit der Auszeichnung für seinen Auftritt vom 9. Oktober 2011 beim Bonner Beethovenfest geehrt, wie der Verein „Bürger für Beethoven“ heute mitteilte.

Am 20. April 2012 erhält Vojta den Ring im Rahmen eines Benefizkonzertes vom Vorsitzenden der „Bürger für Beethoven" im Kammermusiksaal des Beethoven-Hauses. Der Künstler präsentiert, begleitet von Tomoko Sanwano am Klavier, Werke von Luigi Cherubini, Volker David Kirchner und Ludwig van Beethoven.

Premysl Vojta, Jahrgang 1983, ist ein begeisterter Kammermusiker, der zudem über reiche Orchestererfahrungen verfügt: aus seiner Tätigkeit bei der Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden, beim Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, bei der Tschechischen Philharmonie sowie der Prague Philhamonia.

Der Musiker konnte sich auch hierzulande renommierte Preise sichern: Im September 2010 gewann er den ersten Preis beim „Internationalen ARD-Musikwettbewerb“ in München, den Publikumspreis, den Preis für die beste Interpretation des Auftragswerkes und den Sonderpreis der Neuen Philharmonie Westfalen.

Mit dem Beethovenring, der von den Juwelieren Sabine und Martin Schmid gestiftet wird, zeichnen die „Bürger für Beethoven" seit 2004 jeweils einen der fünf jüngsten Beethoven-Interpreten des Beethovenfestes aus.

Kultur.in-Bonn.de; 10.01.2012

Januar 2012

Philippe Tondre won second prize in the ARD Music Competition’s oboe class of 2011; no first prize was awarded. Philippe was the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER’s first oboist in 2008 and 2010, subsequently becoming first oboist with the SWR Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra. The audience prize and the prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work went similarly to Philippe Tondre. The GMJO sends Philippe Tondre (pictured on the left above) warmest congratulations!

Commenting on the jury’s decision the Süddeutsche Zeitung 8.9.2011 wrote (Klaus Kalchschmid, 8.9.2011):

Unbelievable

There was no first prize but instead two people were placed second and another third in the category for oboe.

Munich - Richard Strauss’s late Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra of 1945 was programmed four times in the final of this category at the ARD Music Competition. Four instrumentalists gave markedly different interpretations and each received a second or third prize without any first prize being awarded!

The 22-year-old Frenchman, Philippe Tondre, probably deserved it the most, however, as no one played with such an expressively varied and beautiful tone - as was already evident in the second and third rounds - or with such precision and inspiration, particularly in the blissful ‘Andante’ . Nor were the others so concise in the cadenzas delivered with so much refined audacity in many passages of the finale; these were as much imbued with meaning as sensuality. He was the undisputed winner of the audience prize for his performance on his excellent Marigaux oboe. [...]

September 2011

Following a selection process made up of several rounds, the top-flight jury of nine chose the Latvian Ainārs Rubiķis from around fifty applicants as the winner of the 2011 “Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors’ Award”. The jury’s justification for this: "Ainārs Rubiķis distinguished himself by his ability and virtuosity".

This was not easy for the jury as the applicants were, without exception, highly talented. “In the end it was the interpretative technique Rubikis showed conducting the Gulbenkian Orchestra (associates of the “Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors’ Award”) in Johannes Brahms’s Tragic Overture that convinced the jury” explained Markus Hinterhäuser, director of the Salzburg Festival and jury member.

Nurturing Young Talent

The competition known as “The Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors’ Award” was brought into being in 2010 and is an initiative of Nestlé and the Salzburg Festival in association with the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER. It is the competition’s aim to give a decisive impetus to the careers of highly talented young conductors. The winner is chosen by a distinguished jury under the patronage of Pierre Boulez with Franz Welser-Möst as its chairman. The interpretation of contemporary works is a decisive factor along with the Classical and Romantic repertoires. A prize of 15.000 euros is available, to be awarded annually to a young conductor aged between 22 and 35 years.

Ainārs Rubiķis is the winner in 2011

The 33-year-old Ainārs Rubiķis caused an international sensation when he won the third International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg. This is by no means the only award to be given to this successful Latvian: at the International Competition for Choral Conducting in Riga he won second prize in 2000 and again in 2005 when he also came second in the competition for young choral conductors in Tallinn.

He conducted several concerts as part of the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in Austria. Since 2008, Rubiķis has returned several times to the Latvian National Opera and has been employed as a singer and as assistant conductor to the Latvian Radio Choir. During the 2005-06 season, he conducted the Flemish Radio Choir on their tour of France and Belgium.

Rubiķis, furthermore, has celebrated several debuts with numerous notable orchestras in the past year such as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Duisberg and Budapest Philharmonics, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Heidelberg Sinfonia and the Pays de la Loire Orchestra. This series of debuts will soon go on to take the young conductor to the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra amongst others as well as renewing his acquaintance with the Gulbenkian Orchestra and Kremerata Baltica.

Born in Riga in1978, Ainārs Rubiķis attended the cathedral choir school there, taking up piano and violin studies in conjunction at the Emil Darzins School, one of Latvia’s leading educational establishments for young musicians. While still only nineteen years of age, he took over the direction of Riga’s first college choir. He studied choral conducting and subsequently orchestral conducting at the Latvian Academy of Music where he attended masterclasses given by Andris Vecumnieks, vice principal of the Latvian Academy of Music, and also Mariss Jansons and Zsolt Nagy.

As winner of the competition, Ainārs Rubiķis commented: “I am very pleased and consider myself honoured to be singled out for special attention with the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors’ Award 2011. This award has been a wonderful journey for me. As Pierre Boulez wrote, music is a "labyrinth … full paths waiting to be explored.” I’m looking forward to the exciting concert programme that I’m going to be conducting with the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER in the prize winner’s concert on Saturday as part of the Salzburg Festival."

August 2011

David Afkham stands out amongst the young generation of conductors causing a stir on the international podium from several points of view. Born in Freiburg in 1983 and subsequently a resident of Berlin, not only was he soon made a member of the conductors’ forum of the German music advisory board and the first to receive a grant from the “Bernhard Haitink Fund for Young Talents”; he became, moreover, the first winner of the “Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors’ Award”. He succeeded as the recipient having trumped over eighty other competitors. In the final concert he stood on the podium in front of the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER whose assistant conductor he currently is as well as the London Symphony Orchestra’s. But that’s not all: he is likewise already associated with the foremost ensembles on the other side of the Atlantic including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and has given guest performances with such prominent European establishments as the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and the French National Radio Orchestra. It would be pointless to mention how many other orchestras of international standing have engaged David Afkham lately since receiving the award in Salzburg.

At the same time, his repertoire already far exceeds the bounds of the Classical and Romantic eras and even the Second Viennese School. With the Atmosphères for Large Orchestra by György Ligeti and Dmitri Shostakovitch’s Symphony no.10 in E minor op.93 he was outstanding in two twentieth-century classics on his triumphant progress in Salzburg. In the first piece, Afkham proved convincing in his deployment of tonal resources from the podium in the present CG live recording. The multidimensional aspects brought about by Ligeti’s maximum use of dividing the orchestral parts were perfectly expressed in their expansions and contractions. Finally, an overall conception and the intelligent exercise of moderation without striving for effect characterise David Afkham’s interpretation of Shostakovitch’s symphony from the time of the supposed political “thaw”. The work is marked by turmoil and plaintive notes crowned with the sounds of celebration in conclusion, which do not, however, remain unchanged. The fact that David Afkham has thought this programme through as described makes us all the more interested in his future career.

Orfeo International Music GmbH

July 2011

"But the best was still to come, and that was David Afkham magnificently conducting Orchestre National de France for Shostakovich's 10th. All the rave reviews you might read about David become perfectly justified once you see him perform. It's his precision, no extra movements or cheap gestures to win the crowd; he knows what he wants and he focuses on keeping all the strings under control; The result last night was mesmerizing."

Prokofiev-Shostakovich, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, December 2 2010

December 2010

"Als echte dirigentische Begabung erwies sich der erst 29-jährige Patrick Lange. Gemeinsam mit dem gutgelaunten Orchester servierte er schon bei der Ouvertüre gekonnt all die echt wienerischen "Schmähs"; und auch in der Folge sorgte er sich umsichtig sowohl um die Bühne wie auch um instrumentale Expressivität. Von ihm wird man gewiss noch hören!" (Gerhard Kramer, Wiener Zeitung)

Die Presse, 02.01.2011

Wiener Zeitung, 04. Jänner 2011