Zvi Plesser
Israeli cellist Zvi Plesser enjoys a wide-ranging career as a soloist, chamber music performer, educator and music director. He has been on the world stage for more than 30 years playing, teaching and promoting music in varied settings from the most prestigious halls to community settings with equal devotion and excitement.
As a soloist Mr. Plesser plays regularly in his home country with all the orchestras. Since his debut with the Israel Philharmonic under Maestro Asher Fisch, he has regularly performed with The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Camerata – Including a tour to Australia and Bangkok, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Haifa symphony and more. Highlights of recent seasons include – Bardanashvilli – “Dialogues” with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Ariel Zuckerman, Gulda Cello Concerto with Israel Symphony Orchestra with Rotem Nir, Haydn Cello Concerto with Jerusalem Camerata and Paul Goodwin as well as with Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva with Noam Aviel.
On the world stage he has performed with such orchestras as – Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Saint Martin in the Fields, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, Mexico National Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra to name a few, under conductors such as – Zubin Mehta, Sir Neville Merriner, Sergiu Comissiona, Karl Heinz Steffens, Steven Sloan, Duncan Ward, Omer Meir Welber and many more.
Mr. Plesser devotes much of his time to chamber music. He has played in various chamber music groups throughout the years – the Huberman Quartet and Concertante Chamber Ensemble. In past season he has performed in some of the world’s leading stages such as Paris Champs-Elysees, Musee du Louvre and Salle Pleyel, Vienna Konzerthouse, Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall in New York, London Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre among others.
He is frequently invited to music festivals around the world including – Four Seasons Festival, Mayfest in the US, Utrecht International Music Festival, Rolandseck, Kuhmo Festival, ClasClas and Salon de Provence in Europe as well as Le Point in Japan, the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival and many more.
In the years 2011 – 2021 he served as music director for the” Voice of Music in the Upper Galilee,” festival – Israel’s oldest chamber music festival. Mr. Plesser revitalized the festival by introducing innovative programs that gained the attention of both the audience and the press. In 2022 he founded, together with his friend violinist Guy Braunstein, the Mu-Zi festival.
Mr. Plesser is a graduate of the Juilliard School where he studied with Zara Nelsova. His principal teachers include Zvi Harel in Israel and David Soyer in the United States. Mr. Plesser is a professor at the Jerusalem Academy of Music where he served as head of the strings department as well as director of the Nazaryan chamber music program. In the fall of 2024 he will begin teaching at the Juilliard school in New York City. He has also taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany. He is frequently invited to give masterclasses and workshops in musical centers around the world.
Mr. Plesser is on the faculty of the Perlman Music Program since 2017 where he teaches twice a year in the “Littles” program as well as the Sarasota residency. For the last few years, he has also taught at the Morningside Musical Bridge summer program in Boston.
Mr. Plesser has been heard on various radio and television programs and has recorded for Helicon, Kleos, Meridian, Naxos, Alpha and more. A graduate of the Jerusalem Music Center as part of the program for Outstanding Young Musicians headed by Maestro Isaac Stern, Mr. Plesser won the prestigious Francoise Shapira Competition, the 41st annual Washington International Competition and was the recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarships.
Guy Braunstein
“I always remain who I am. Only the music decides my meaning.” (Guy Braunstein) A unique blend of virtuosity, restraint and creativity – this is what violinist, conductor and composer Guy Braunstein stands for. Like few others, he not only knows how to convince audiences with his music, but also how to challenge them: Whether with demanding programmes, sophisticated interpretations or his own works and arrangements – Guy Braunstein aims to surprise and reinvent. And although he can
easily be categorised in the “tradition of the great Jewish violinists such as Mischa Elman and Isaac Stern” (Telegraph), for him music lives not only from its own history, but through perpetual renewal, updating and unexpected twists and turns.
Whether as a celebrated soloist who masters the standard repertoire from Bach to Shostakovich with ease, or as a congenial chamber music partner in a wide variety of formations: Guy Braunstein is a guest at the world’s most important music centres and festivals. His musical partners include András Schiff, Zubin, Mehta, Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yefim Bronfman, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, Christoph von Dohnányi, Lang Lang, Emmanuel Ax, Andris Nelsons and Semyon Bychkov.
Guy Braunstein is also present on the international concert stage as a conductor: he was Conductor and Artist inResidence with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Trondheim Symfoniorkester and works with orchestras such as the Helsinki, Rotterdam and Israel Philharmonic as well as the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of the 2023/24 season include concerts with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra,the Prague Chamber Soloists and the Copenhagen Phil, in which Guy Braunstein will appear as soloist and conductor. The programmes include his own works such as “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter” and the Rusalka Rhapsody as well as the violin concertos by Elgar, Delius and Haydn.
Guy Braunstein’s greatest and identity-forming passion is arranging and composing: In the romantic tradition of Paganini and Liszt, he brilliantly transcribes musical masterpieces for his own or other instruments and instrumentations and presents operas, chamber music or even songs in a completely new form. In addition to excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and “Swan Lake”, he has also arranged Puccini arias and Dvořák’s opera “Rusalka”. In 2023, “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter”, an rrangement of Schönberg’s string sextet “Verklärte Nacht”, celebrated its premiere with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. The violinist is particularly fond of the Beatles’ songs: in addition to Six Variations on “Blackbird” and the arrangements of “A hard day’s night” and “Something”, Guy Braunstein also wrote “Abbey Road Concerto”, a highly virtuoso version of the Beatles’ album “Abbey Road” for solo violin and orchestra.
