VIOLIN MASTER CLASS WITH BORIS BELKIN
The course will focus on the study and improvement of the great solo concert repertoire.
Admission to the course will take place after selection. To participate, candidates must send an application to the Festival secretariat at infolivornomusicfestival@gmail.com by May 31, 2023 attaching:
- A short video clip, single grip, duration 5/10 minutes, good audio quality, performing a piece at free choice, via YouTube link, Google Drive, Dropbox.
- The following form (click to download) for the application and the processing of personal data, completed and signed.
The results of the selection will be communicated via email by June 5, 2024.
No later than June 10, 2024, admitted candidates must confirm their participation by filling the online registration form (click to go to the form) complete with the payment of the registration and attendance fees.
The timetable of the course will be defined by the professor according to the composition of the class.
The course provides a piano accompanist (only on request at the time of registration).
The organization reserves the right to make some scholarships available to the most deserving students upon request to the secretariat, to be assigned at the end of the course and at the discretion of the teachers.
Conditions for registration and fees
For the SELECTIONS “Perform as a Soloist with the Orchestra” and “Perform with the Artists” in the concert program of this year's Festival click here
Boris Belkin played in Moscow at the inaugural 1st Rostropovich Festival in 2011 with Temirkanov and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He emigrated to the west in 1974 and since regularly worked with conductors like Bernstein, Ashkenazy, Mehta, Maazel, Muti, Ozawa, Kurt Sanderling, Temirkanov, Dohnányi, Dutoit, Gelmetti, Herbig, Tennstedt, Rattle, Haitink, Berglund, Mata, Chung, Hirokami, Fedoseyev, Ahronovitch, Welser-Most, Lazalev, Simonov, Gelmetti and Kogan, alongside many others, performing with the world’s leading orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Cleveland, Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Royal Concertgebouw and the major British Orchestras. Boris Belkin has regularly returned to the Miyazaki Festival since he was first asked by Isaac Stern to perform with him at it in 1997 and he plays chamber music with artists such as Yuri Bashmet, Mischa Maisky, Georges Pludermacher, and many others. Season ‘12/13 includes several concerts in Paris, Moscow and Spain with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov, and tours to South America and Spain with the Moscow Philharmonic.
Boris Belkin has featured in several television productions which include a film on Jean Sibelius (performing the Concerto with the Swedish Radio Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy), with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto, with Bernstein and the Orchestra National de France playing Ravel’s Tzigane and with Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Mozart and Paganini’s Concerto No.1.
Boris Belkin’s first recording, Paganini’s 1st Violin Concerto, was with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta and was extremely highly praised. His other discs for Decca include the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Concertos with The Philharmonia and Ashkenazy, Richard Strauss’s Concerto with Berlin Radio and Ashkenazy, Prokofiev’s Concertos No.1 and No.2 with the London Philharmonic under Kondrashin and Barshai and the Brahms Concerto with the LSO and Fischer. For Denon he has recorded the Prokofiev Concertos with the Zurich Tonhalle and Michael Stern, the concertos by Sibelius, Bruch and Glazunov plus Shostakovich’s 1st Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic and Junichi Hirokami, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the London Philharmonic conducted by Michael Stern, Mozart’s Concerto in A major K219 and Sinfonia Concertante with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists and Brahms’ Sonatas with Michel Dalberto.
Boris Belkin has held master classes in Siena, Italy, at the famed Accademia Chigiana since 1985 and been Director of Strings for the Imola International Academy Foundation “Incontri con il Maestro” near Bologna in Italy since 2020.
“… his playing has infinite qualities of song and suppleness. In this music (Prokofiev’s 2nd Violin Concerto), where many prefer to work from a plan of sometimes irritating dryness, he traced the music with full and slender strokes of playful elegance. His sound is round, generous yet with shafts of strength and passion. The bow, a length of wood he handles like the blade of a foil, is sure and used without show. The second movement, a long line of solo singing with expressive clarinet and string accompaniment, remained on the edge of containment without overflowing into sentiment. The last movement, which does not have the radiance of the two preceding it, requires a vivacity and occasional gritty quality that Boris Belkin truthfully gave us.”
“Expressiveness without sentimentality” Marie-Aude Roux, 17 Nov ’12 / Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No. 2 op. 63, Boris Belkin (violin), Orchestra of St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Yuri Temirkanov (conductor) – Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris