Violinist Itamar Zorman
with pianist Kwan Yi
Presented by Carnegie Hall on its
Distinctive Debuts Series
2011 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition Winner
2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant Winner
2014 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award Winner
Watch Itamar Zorman on NYC-ARTS:
http://bit.ly/NYCARTS_Zorman
Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at 7:30pm
Weill Recital Hall | Carnegie Hall
154 West 57th Street | New York, NY
Tickets: $38 at 212.247.7800 or www.carnegiehall.org
Itamar Zorman online: www.itamarzorman.com
New York, NY — Superb violinist Itamar Zorman, described as a “virtuoso of emotions” (Goettinger Tageblatt), will make his Carnegie Hall recital debut as part of Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debuts Series at Weill Recital Hall (154 West 57th St.) on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at 7:30pm. Zorman was recently awarded the 2014 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and in 2011 was one of two top prize winners at the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition. His program, with pianist Kwan Yi, will include J.S. Bach’s Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major; Schnittke’s Violin Sonata No. 2, “Quasi una sonata;” Hindemeth’s Solo Violin Sonata, Op. 31, No. 1; and Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor. The Hindemith and Brahms are included on Zorman’s debut album, which also features music by Messiaen, Schubert, and Chausson, released in Europe by Profil-Editions Günther Hänssler in spring 2014 (CDs available upon request).
Zorman is a rare talent whose performances combine unparalleled technical prowess with unabashedly sincere emotional depth. The Guardian describes his playing as “astonishingly intimate and intense,” and the New York Times raved that his “splendid playing conveyed precisely the right mix of tenderness, agitation and spiritual succor.” Of a recent recital in Houston, the critic Joel Luks, writing for Culturemap Houston, wrote, “I allowed myself to cry. I wasn’t the only one. Up until then, I was prepared to jot down a glowing review, the kind that is dotted with Hollywood-type movie remarks flashing across a silver screen – like riveting, gripping and two thumbs up. But in addition to having to scheme my escape in hopes of avoiding colleagues – because who wants to see a grown man cry – the whole premise of my critique was shot to hell. Technique can be taught and practiced . . . What’s puzzling is how someone at a young age . . . is able to subsume so much aesthetic puissance into miniscule sonorities? That I couldn’t explain.”
Born in Tel-Aviv in 1985 into a family of musicians (his father is a composer and his mother a pianist), Zorman won one of two silver medals at the 2011 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition, subsequently performing in the winners’ concerts with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. Following his Carnegie Hall recital debut, in November 2014 he will appear with the Teatro Massimo Orchestra in Palermo playing the Beethoven Concerto, led by conductor Daniel Oren. In March 2015, he performs in Haifa and Tel Aviv with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra led by Zubin Mehta. In spring 2015, he tours for the third time with Musicians from Marlboro, performing in New York and Philadelphia, and will return to Carnegie Hall to join Richard Goode for two installments of “Richard Goode and Friends,” performing the chamber music of Brahms, Schumann, and Fauré. His season will also include a performance with the KBS Orchestra at the Seoul National Arts Center in Korea and a tour of Italy with the Shanghai Opera Theater Orchestra.
Previous highlights as an orchestral soloist include touring with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra led by David Robertson, with American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Het Gelders Orkest at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Tokyo Symphony at Suntory Hall, Utah Symphony, Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Orquesta Filharmonica de Cali, Philharmonie Baden Baden, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Haifa Symphony, the Fundación Sinfonia in Santo Domingo, and an engagement at the Kronberg Academy Festival which included a concert with the Moscow Soloists and Yuri Bashmet. Zorman won the Juilliard Berg Concerto Competition in April 2011, which led to his Avery Fisher Hall debut with the Juilliard Orchestra led by the late James DePreist. Other competition successes include the first prize and special prize for a performance of a Mozart Concerto at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Freiburg.
Recent recital highlights for Zorman include concerts at the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Santory Hall in Tokyo, Seoul’s Kumho Art Hall, Houston Society for the Performing Arts, the HR-Sendesaal Frankfurt, his debut on the Louvre recital series in Paris, and his debut at the Verbier Festival. In 2010, Zorman played in a series of recitals broadcast on Radio France for the Radio France Festival in Montpellier.
A committed chamber musician, Zorman is a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, which won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prize in the 2011 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, first prize in the 2011 Arriaga Competition, and a bronze medal in the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. He has appeared with chamber ensembles at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. As a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project, Zorman has toured Israel and North America for six seasons.
A recipient of scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and Ilona Feher Foundation, Zorman has participated in numerous master classes around the world, working with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zuckerman, Shlomo Mintz, Ida Handel and Ivry Gitlis. He began his violin studies at the age of six at the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel-Aviv, and later studied at the Jerusalem Academy and Manhattan School of Music. Zorman has a Master’s degree and Artist Diploma from Juilliard, where he studied with Sylvia Rosenberg, and recently graduated from the Kronberg Academy where he studied with Christian Tetzlaff.
Zorman was one of three protagonists featured in the documentary film Violinissimo, which followed the lives of three promising young violinists and was released by Detail Films throughout Germany in 2012.
Itamar Zorman plays on a Pietro Guarneri violin from 1745 from the private collection of Yehuda Zisapel. He divides his time between Kronberg, Germany and New York, NY.
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