Sun, Jan. 19, 2025, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall
Ernst Toch: “Fugue from Geography” for speaking choir
Gustav Mahler: Piano quartet movement in A minor
Gustav Mahler: “Rückert-Lieder” - arrangement for baritone and piano quartet by Stéphane Fromageot
Matthew Shlomowitz: “Letter Piece” No. 5 “Northern Cities” for two performers
Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor op. 60
Bariton: Nicholas Mogg
Violine: Hibiki Oshima
Viola: Thomas Rühl
Violoncello: Merlin Schirmer
Klavier: Anne von Twardowski
Birthplace:
Manchester, United Kingdom
Studies:
International Opera Studio, Hamburg State Opera; National Opera Studio, London; Royal Academy of Music, London; Clare College, University Cambridge
Masterclass:
with Sir Simon Keenlyside, Christian Gerhaher, Malcolm Martineau, Brigitte Fassbaender, Gerald Finley, Sir Thomas Allen
Relation to the Hamburg State Opera:
Ensemble member of the Hamburg State Opera since the 2022/23 season
Was Member of the International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera from 2019/20 to 2022/23
Prizes:
Royal Over-Seas League Singers’ Section; Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Award
Roles:
Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Ned Keene (Peter Grimes), Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas), Dandini (La Cenerentola), Steward (Flight), Herr Peachum (Die Dreigroschenoper), Melisso (Alcina), Jupiter (Orphée aux Enfers), et al.
Stages:
Hamburg State Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Het Concertgebouw, Festival Aix, Elbphilharmonie, Theater Lübeck
Cooperation with directors:
Keith Warner, Herbert Fritsch, Tim Albery, Orpha Phelan, Richard Jones
Cooperation with conductors:
Robin Ticciati, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Ton Koopman, Sir Roger Norrington, Yoel Gamzou, Francesco Ivan Ciampa, Alan Gilbert, Kent Nagano
Hibiki Oshima was born in Yokohama. At the early age of eleven, she had made up her mind to get to know Europe and its culture, and a year later she had the chance to implement this plan on a lengthy journey. These impressions led her to enrol at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts after completing her secondary education. There, her teachers included Rainer Küchl, Johannes Meissl and Avedis Kouyoumdjian. She has performed at numerous music festivals, including Wien Modern, the Pacific Music Festival, the Bienal Musica Hoje and ECMA in Switzerland. She completed her education by taking courses with Gerhard Schulz, Anner Bylsma, Hatto Beyerle and Heime Müller. In 2006/07 Hibiki Oshima was a fellow of the Herbert von Karajan Centre. She won the First Prize at the Chamber Music Competition Pietro Argento as well as the Second Prize and special prize at the Premio Internazionale di Musica “G. Zinetti”. In addition, she received the Eduard Söring Prize of the Foundation for the Support of the Hamburg State Opera in 2011. Her passion for chamber music and contemporary music led her to join ensembles such as the Hibiki Quartet and the Ensemble Platypus, with which she has presented numerous world premieres by young composers. After an engagement as First Concertmaster with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, she has been section leader of the second violins of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 2010. When she is not playing the violin, she likes to cook and dedicates herself to her secret passion, paragliding.
Born in Regensburg in 1978, violist Thomas Rühl received his first violin and viola lessons at the age of nine. After graduating from secondary school, he began studying viola in 1998 with Gertrude Rossbacher at the Bremen Music Academy. In 2002 he took up studies with Barbara Westphal at the Lübeck Music Academy, where he received the artistic diploma in 2005 and a postgraduate degree in 2008, both with distinction. He attended master courses with Jürgen Kussmaul, Heidi Castleman, James Dunham and Walter Levin and received the award of the Marie-Luise Imbusch Foundation. From 2002 to 2005 Thomas Rühl was principal viola of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. An internship took him to the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg in 2003/04. For six years, he taught at the Lübeck Music Academy; today he coaches for Jeunesses Musicales of Germany. Since 2006 he has been a member of the viola section of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Merlin Schirmer was born in Stuttgart in 1988. His first cello teacher was Erik Borgir, who awakened an interest in contemporary music in his student early on. Merlin Schirmer studied in Stuttgart and Vienna, his teachers including Rudolf Gleißner, Claudio Bohórquez and Valentin Erben, cellist of the former Alban Berg Quartet. Early on, he developed the wish to join a major opera or symphony orchestra. First steps on his path toward this goal were his membership in the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester founded by Claudio Abbado and an internship with the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart. Towards the end of his studies, Merlin Schirmer was first appointed principal cellist of the Jena Philharmonic for a year and then joined the Dresden Philharmonic for another year as a cellist, before becoming a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in August 2015.
Born in South Africa in 1982, Anne-Monika von Twardowski received her first piano lessons in Germany at the age of six. After graduating from high school, she completed a diploma in instrumental education and art between 2002 and 2011, as well as a master's degree as a pianist at the Lübeck University of Music. As part of the Erasmus exchange program, she studied in Barcelona at the Escola Superior de Musica Catalunya in 2005/2006. Master classes at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival complemented her training. From 2008 to 2018 she was the pianist of the Salut Salon quartet, with whom she performed worldwide. For the album “Carnival Fantasy” she received the ECHO Klassik in the “Classic without Borders” category with Salut Salon in 2016. In 2014, together with cellist Sonja Lena Schmid, she initiated the “Rauschen” project, which combines classical chamber music with live electronics in a new club format, and worked with well-known artists in the electronic scene such as the Teichmann brothers. In 2015, Anne-Monika von Twardowski became an honorary Alster lock keeper - an award for Hamburg residents who have served as ambassadors for Hamburg in the world. She worked as a guest lecturer for stage coaching at the Berlin University of Popular Arts.
With a chamber concert with a very similar line-up, I was able to experience the first time making music together after the lockdown: a moment of great gratitude and heartfelt joy.
Thomas Rühl, viola player
Music connects and creates identity and community and, like language, is part of the human living environment. Ernst Toch's “Fuge from Geography” shows that these two forms of expression can be wonderfully combined when he transfers the melodies and rhythms of language to the musical form. Gustav Mahler's piano quartet movement in A minor tells the story of searching and finding one's own musical language, which the sixteen-year-old composed with youthful enthusiasm and great awe for his even greater role model Johannes Brahms. Words and language accompanied Mahler throughout his life; he was always surrounded by books. In one he found the poems of Friedrich Rückert. The musical transmission of this poetry uses subtle tones to evoke man's separation from the world. From the poetry of words to the language of the body: Matthew Shlomowitz has been composing his “Letter Pieces” since 2007, combining physicality and sound. Johannes Brahms, on the other hand, experienced how difficult it can be to find words and sounds. He worked on his Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor for over two decades. With the autobiographical work he expressed moments of deepest despair and let the music speak when words were no longer enough.
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
