Great Artists Series 18-19: Gil Shaham, violin and Akira Eguchi, piano

Gil Shaham, violin

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time: his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons in addition to championing these solo works he will join his long time duo partner pianist, Akira Eguchi in recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony as well as multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore.  With orchestra, Mr. Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold, Prokofiev, among many others. 

Mr. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, The Butterfly Lovers and many more. His most recent recording in the series 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, including the Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2 was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of 7, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took the first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University.

Mr. Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008, received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.

Akira Eguchi, piano

Since making his highly acclaimed New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1992, Mr. Eguchi has performed in the foremost music centers of the United States, Europe, and the Far East. His appearances in the United States include Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.. Also he has performed at Musikverein in Vienna, Barbican Centre in London, Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, Herkulessaal in Munich, Tonhalle in Zurich. and Concertgebouw at Amsterdam. Distinguished for his performances for heads of State, Mr. Eguchi has played for President Clinton presented by Isaac Stern at the White House, and for the Emperor and Empress of Japan at Hamarikyu Ashahi Hall in Tokyo. Mr. Eguchi has been featured in numerous tours of the United States, France, England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, encompassing recitals and concerts with many of those countries' foremost ensembles. He is also known as a collaborative pianist for renowned Violinists such as Gil Shaham, Anne Akiko Meyers, Akiko Suwanai, Kyoko Takezawa, Tamaki Kawakubo, and Reiko Watanabe amongst the others.

Currently 45 disks are available from Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, Denon, Marquis Classics, Victor, IDC, BMG, Kosei publishing, Canary/Vanguard, AVEX, Octavia, and NYS Classics, including 11 solo albums most of which have been selected as “The best newly released album of the month” from Recording Arts Magazine. He is privileged of using the legendary instrument, New York Steinway model “CD75”(1912) which Maestro Horowitz played at his concerts in late '70th till ’83, currently owned by Takagi Klavier of Tokyo.

As an active composer, Mr. Eguchi's arrangements of Gershwin Piano Selections were published from Zen-On publishing company, and the piano trio version of Faure’s  “Après un rêve” was published from International Music Company.

Born 1963 in Tokyo, Mr. Eguchi has received his Bachelor’s Degree in Composition from Tokyo National University of the Fine Arts and Music (renamed to Tokyo University of the Arts), Master’s Degree in Piano Performance from The Juilliard School. He has studied with Herbert Stessin, Samuel Sanders, Hitoshi Toyama, Akiko Kanazawa for piano, and Shin Sato, Akira Kitamura, Ichiro Mononobe for composition.

He was on the faculty member at CUNY Brooklyn College till spring of 2011. Currently, he lives in New York and Tokyo, serving as an Associate Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts. He also teaching at Senzoku-Gakuen Music College in Japan as a guest professor.

**Program subject to change.

Sponsored by Noémi and Michael Neidorff

Financial assistance for this project has been provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a stateagency.  www.missouriartscouncil.org