Fugata Quintet
Zivorad Nikolic accordion, Anastasios Mavroudis violin, Antonis Hatzinikolaou guitar, Anahit Chaushyan piano, James Opstad double bass

Adios Nonino, Concierto Para Quinteto, Mumuki, Revolucionario, Tangata (Silfo y Ondina), Introduccion al Angel, Milonga del AngeLa Muerte del Angel, Ressureccion del Angel, Coral, Tango del Diablo, Romance del Diablo, Vayamos al Diablo. All works by Astor Piazzolla

Pictures taken on Sunday 11 July

If you wish to add your review to the concert please email your comments and they will be uploaded onto the website. Blackthorpe Barn reserves the right to edit comments submitted.

Amazing musicianship and before I hated the accordian, now I think it is wonderful. Guitarist superb  but all of the artists are!
Jayne Gilbert, Bury St Edmunds

Delightful! Nice to have some non-mainstream music at these events.
Iain Watson, Bury St Edmunds

Biography

The Fugata Quintet was formed in early 2007 following a concert at the Royal Academy of Music. That concert was prompted by our joint curiosity and passion for the works of the Argentinean composer Ástor Piazzolla. Piazzolla, contrary to popular belief, was not just a Tango composer, but the founder of an innovative and original style of composition, which he coined as Nuevo Tango.  New Tango, as it is called in English, is a fusion of classical composition techniques with elements of jazz and traditional tango motifs. We discovered that very few performers have explored this repertoire in depth and even fewer have  performed these works in their original instrumentation, as the composer intended, since most have adopted either a popular approach or a completely classical one. Well-known and respected musicians such as Mtislav Rostropovich, Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and the Kronos Quartet have performed some of his works. One positive outcome of this is that his music has acquired a higher standing within the classical world and is extremely popular on the world music scene.

Fugata, since its formation, has managed to perform almost all of Piazzolla’s compositions that have been published and has even discovered many which have yet to be released. Our musical journey through these magnificent pieces has opened up new artistic avenues allowing us to create innovative shows based on the originally intended function of the repertoire performed, which incorporated other art-forms, to produce thoroughly entertaining and emotionally engaging spectacles. The Fugata Quintet and its members have performed in many of the worlds most important and prestigious concert halls, and have collaborated with esteemed orchestras and conductors. Fugata is the only  independent group known to have produced and performed a fully staged production of Astor Piazzolla’s and Horacio Ferrer’s masterpiece “Maria de Buenos Aires: a Tango Opera in Two Parts”.

Zivorad Nikolic accordion

Zivorad graduated with a BMus from the Royal Academy of Music in 2008. A student of Owen Murray, Zivorad has performed at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. Johns Smith Square, at Jordan’s Club as “Accordio duo” together with Milos Milivojevic and other ensembles. He played in the “Fiddler on the Roof” production at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Recent musical experiences include the Channel 4 recording for the Tiger aspects documentary “How Music Works” and also live sessions for the BBC programme Roma Rokker Radio.

Anastasios Mavroudis violin

Anastasios graduated from the Royal Academy of Music with a BMus in 2006 and a MMus in 2008 studying with Professors Lydia Mordkovitch and Igor Petrushevski. He is the founder of the Tettix Ensemble which specializes in the performance of works by 20th century Greek composers. He has given chamber music performances in Austria, Greece, Italy and the UK, and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras from Greece, Germany, Hungary and Romania. Recent performances include an appearance as a soloist with the Athens State Symphony Orchestra at the prestigious Athens Megaron Concert Hall, collaborating with the great Greek violinist Tatsis Apostolides. Anastasios continues his studies at Goldsmith’s College researching chamber music by 20th century Greek composers, working towards a PhD.

Antonis Hatzinikolaou guitar

In 2004 Antonis joined London’s Royal Academy of Music where he began his Postgraduate Diploma in Guitar Performance with Michael Lewin, Timothy Walker and John Mills. During this course Antonis became increasingly interested in performance research and ultimately graduated with a Masters of Music degree, having completed a concert project exploring John Dowland’s depiction of melancholy in reference to Benjamin Britten’s Nocturnal. In addition to achieving a Distinction for his Master’s degree, Antonis was further awarded the “Reginald Thatcher Award for General Excellence” and, notably, the honorary DipRAM – the highest performance award conferred by the Royal Academy of Music.

In his professional career, Antonis has already experienced notable success. He has received distinctions in numerous international guitar competitions and festivals, including the Patras National Guitar Festival Competition (Greece, 2001), the International Koblenz Guitar Competition “Hubert Käppel” (Germany, 2004), the Ivor Mairants International Guitar Award (UK, 2005) and the prestigious Julian Bream Prize (UK, 2006) adjudicated by Julian Bream himself. Antonis’ professional engagements have taken him to Italy, Greece, Spain and the UK and have included performances with the Kensington Symphony Orchestra and with Grammy-winning violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved in the 2006 Paganini Festival in London. Antonis was awarded the 2007 Park Lane Group Young Artist Award and subsequently made his Purcell Room debut (London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall) in 2008 which led to a solo recital at St. Martin-in-the-Fields earlier this year.

2009 sees the release of Antonis’ debut solo CD under the Draft Records label and the NMC’s Songbook CD box set of 20th Anniversary Concerts at Kings Place, where Antonis appears with other artists.


Anahit Chaushyan piano

Anahit was born into the forth generation in a family of professional musicians and started musical training from the age of six. After completing her studies in Armenia she had given numerous recitals there; many of her early performances included compositions by contemporary Armenian composers.
 
Anahit graduated from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles under Evgeni Mogilevski and from Royal Academy of Music (Dip RAM) in London under Pascal Nemirovski. She is a recipient of the Diploma D’Onore at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Anahit is a laureate of the International Emmanuel Durlet Paino Competition in Antwerp, Belgium.
 
Her studies were complemented by master classes from the likes of Paul Badura-Skoda, Michele Campanella, Lazar Berman, Lev Naumov and Stephen Hough. In London she held recitals and chamber music performances at the Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and the St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Anahit has also performed at the Santori Hall in Tokio, the Grande Salle du Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles and the Gavot Hall in Paris.

Anahit has made numerous concert appearances with the London Soloists Orchestra and has regular performance engagements with the Armenian State Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a member of the Orpheus & Bacchus Ensemble, France, the Amaranth trio, UK and the Fugata Quintet, UK.

James Opstad double bass

James Opstad is currently studying jazz at the Royal Academy of Music. He has played with many of the top UK jazz musicians including Kenny Wheeler, Stan Sulzmann, Liam Noble and Mark Lockheart. James is also featured on albums by Jon Opstad and by South African pianist Nishlyn Ramanna. As well as being a bass player, James is also a composer and was highly commended in the BBC/Guardian Composition Competition for three consecutive years and was class and overall winner of the 2004 EPTA Composition Competition.

www.fugata.co.uk

(Posted 23 July 2010)