Borletti-Buitoni Trust
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BBT Track Record

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Irina Zahharenkova piano

Scarlatti Sonatas, CD on Classical Records 

“Zahharenkova has razor-sharp clarity and is therefore able to make a strong impression in the brilliant passagework that is so demanding in this music.  But she can be elegant, teasing and flirtatious too… Her wide range of tonal colour and touch is also admirable….a most valuable addition to the catalogue.”
Murray McLachlan, Muso August/September 2012

“… she never succumbs to the danger of romanticizing – the sound of the harpsichord is to be heard in the fluid playing. Her performance instills these pretty little works with joy and the fine nuances bring out the delicate humour and pay heed to the motto which Scarlatti prefaced his sontatas with: ‘Live happily’”
Tageblatt 2 June 2012

“Without attempting to reproduce the colour and feel of the harpsichord, but finding a specific language, the pianist manages an approach more convincing, full of lightness, but no superficiality.”
La Libre Belgique May 2012

“Beautifully sculpted pianism with plenty of colour, character and imagination. A very enterprising programme, too: a good number of the sonatas – all of them musically interesting – are relatively unfamiliar.”
Rob Cowan, BBC Radio 3 April 2012.

Hannes Minnaar piano

Showcase concert at 20 Mansfield Street, London 

“DUTCH TREAT… I accept an invitation to hear young Dutch pianist Hannes Minnaar in a regency living room with Persian rugs on the parquet, artworks on the walls and cherubs on the ceiling. It’s like Chopin giving a salon concert, especially when Minnaar plays the Polish composer in the second half, the audience dreamy with concentration, the bespectacled artist in his other-worldly trance, locks flowing, exploring the extremes in the Twenty-Four PreludesOp 28… The owner of the regency lounge tells us that it is Minnaar’s first time in the United Kingdom. It will certainly not be his last.”
Rick Jones, Music Blog 22 March 2012

Trio Mondrian

Ravel & Shostakovich,CD on Challenge Classics 

“The young Israeli Mondrian Trio have used their Borletti-Buitoni Award wisely in recording these works… a perfomrance that takes place on a vast, visionary scale… I have always loved this work [Shostakovich Trio] but  these musicians reminded me what a big masterpiece it really is.”
Helen Wallace, BBC Music Magazine May 2012

“this performance has terrific integrity, blending bitterness and irony with the elegiac, brooding quality provoked by the death of Shostakovich’s friend and ally Ivan Sollertinsky, to whose memory the Trio is dedicated.  The Mondrian’s colours and textures in the Ravel are luminous, with delicacy and gusto achieving a fine equilibrium.”
Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone April 2012

Jörgen van Rijen trombone

Kalevi Aho’s Trombone Concerto 
commissioned for Jörgen van Rijen by Borletti-Buitoni Trust

“He performed with such subtlety, too. Forget the stereotype of a lumbering, comedy instrument; van Rijen and Aho turned the trombone into a fount of melodic grace and gambolling, cradled over four generous movements by an equally refined orchestra… The finale was terrific, a hiccupping rhythmic feast suddenly aborted by a return to the concerto’s dream-like opening, with van Rijen magically disappearing into a twinkling infinity of bells.”
Geoff Brown, The Times 16 May 2012

“disarmingly deft traversal of the solo part… The most distinctive ideas come in the second movement, a scherzo, in which the soloist shimmies his way through an increasingly heated, jazz-infused drum-dance… within his traditional aesthetic, Aho knows how to challenge his musicians – lots of subtle percussion, especially in the finale – and keep his audience alert across a 30-minute span.”
Andrew Clark, Financial Times 13 May 2012  

“Only high praise can be showered on the soloist, Jörgen van Rijen, who coped superbly with the many demands made on him by Aho’s imagination, including the need to play two trombones, the alto and tenor, and sing at the same time. The fast movements were dispatched with brio and the score was given the best possible London launch.”
Edward Clark, Classical Source 10 May 2012

“the trombone was mournful or jaunty but always lyrical. While the whole piece was expertly crafted, busy percussion hinted at Latin show-tunes bursting to get out.”
Nick Kimberley, London Evening Standard 11 May 2012

Shai Wosner piano

Michael Hersch’s Piano Concerto, Along the Ravines
commissioned for Shai Wosner by Borletti-Buitoni Trust

“magnificent performance… profoundly rewarding and no end [sic] fascinating.”
Bernard Jacobson, Seen and Heard International 22 May 2012

“Based on poetry by Zbigniew Herbert, this piece for piano and orchestra paired well with Bluebeard’s Castle, sharing the opera’s emotional intensity and overwhelming sense of foreboding.”
Dana Wen, The Sun Break 17 May 2012

BBT Tour 2012

with Khatia Buniatishvili piano, Viviane Hagner violin, Lawrence Power viola, Christian Poltéra cello
Amsterdam – London – Eindhoven 

“Such great technical skill, energy and intensity were brought to the stage by violinist Viviane Hagner, violist Lawrence Power, cellist Christian Poltéra and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili. All four of them have their own stories to tell, but in this chamber music repertoire they connected their soloist qualities to a joint cause, putting not their four egos, but the content of the music first. They played without reserve and completely dedicated to the music. It was beautiful to see how they enjoyed the music and each other, how they made eye contact, smiled to each other and stimulated each other to give the very best they had. That led to confident, spirited performances of the dynamic First Piano Quartet of Brahms and the fresh, also First String Trio by Beethoven.”
Marjolijn Sengers, Eindhovens Dagblad 7 May 2012