Press Releases

This year the Borletti-Buitoni Trust (BBT) supported the Verbier Festival Academy Chamber Music programme for the third consecutive year and has agreed a further year’s sponsorship. BBT artists taking part in the 2008 Academy were the Navarra Quartet, German violinist Jermolaj Albiker and Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins who won the overall Prix d’Honneur Verbier Festival Academy for his performance as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. Hopkins is also the first of the BBT musicians to take advantage of special coaching with Patsy Rodenburg offered by the Trust which he found enormously helpful: “Although I learned a great many more techniques and ideas from Patsy in our session, most importantly she gave me permission to trust in myself – I felt an immediate correction in physical posture and mindset when entering and standing in a recital space, and can honestly say I have a fresh, positive outlook on performing my next recital.” Read his remarkably frank blog at www.bbtrust.com/blog

Two American veterans of the Iraq war have inspired the music that is the title track of Dutch trombonist van Rijen’s second BBT-supported CD, I was like, Wow!, to be released in November 2008 on Channel Classics. He will give a London showcase performance of this commissioned work as well as others from the CD at 22 Mansfield Street * on 1 December alongside BBT 2008 Fellowship winner Leonard Elschenbroich (cello). Combined with his first baroque CD, Sackbutt, recorded with the renowned Combattimento Consort, van Rijen has made a strong personal statement about the versatility of the trombone as a solo instrument (see film and hear excerpts on this website). He will use the remainder of his BBT award to support the commissioning of two new pieces, details of which will be announced soon.

Harpist Lavinia Meijer is another talented young musician from the Netherlands who strives to build a soloist career with a ‘difficult’ instrument. Already well known in her home country where she appears on popular TV chat shows, she has her sights set very much at an international level and has put some of her BBT award towards the making of a short promotional film and also a CD of French harp repertoire to be released on Channel Classics in October 2008. The film, which is now online on the BBT website, illustrates the extent of Lavinia’s commitment: through her performances and masterclasses she clearly demonstrates her passion for the harp whose technical and creative abilities she describes and demonstrates to audiences that are hitherto unaware of the instrument’s capacity for quirky contemporary music as well as lyrical sweetness.

As we prepare to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armistice this November, BBT celebrates the release of the first of two CDs with Altara Music by English tenor Andrew Kennedy. The Dark Pastoral, featuring rarely heard music and poetry (read by Simon Russell-Beale) of the first world war era, has been met with warm praise. Sample tracks of the three featured composers – William Denis Browne, Ivor Gurney and Eugene Goosens – are now on the BBT website. Plans will soon be announced regarding the second recording in 2009/10 which will be an orchestral disc.

Altara music is becoming a regular recording partner for several of BBT’s winners. Following on from violinist Viviane Hagner and Andrew Kennedy come the David Trio and Navarra Quartet. The Italian trio’s debut CD is released in November 2008 featuring the Schubert piano trios, while the Navarra Quartet is preparing to record Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross in January 2009 for its first CD. As well as supporting the recording, BBT will also fund a short film of interviews and live performance incorporating a backdrop projection of contemporary paintings – inspired by the music – by the celebrated Australian-born artist Jamie Boyd.