Martina Filjak
Croatian pianist Martina Filjak established herself internationally with her passionate, poetic playing and the brilliant technical mastery of her instrument. She captivates audiences and the press with her charismatic personality and magnetic stage presence.
She garnered international attention in 2009 by winning first prize and the Beethoven Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Prior to that she won first prizes at the Viotti International Piano Competition in Italy (2007) and the Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona (2008) and was a prizewinner at the Busoni Competition in Bolzano. (“Vivid and attractive stage presence … resourcefulness of technique and naturalness of musicality … Pianist worthy of attention’, The New York Times). ). Immediately before Cleveland, she was the winner of first prizes at the Viotti (2007) and Maria Canals competitions in Barcelona (2008) and was a laureate of the Busoni competition in Bolzano.
As a recepient of various awards in her native Croatia, Martina takes pride of being awarded the ‘Vladimir Nazor’ prize, the ‘Milka Trnina prize’ of the Croatian association of musical artists, ‘Orlando’ prize for her performance at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the ‘Judita’ prize for her performance of Dora Pejacevic’s Piano concerto at the Split Festival. In 2009 she was honored by the President with the ‘Red hrvatskog pletera’ for the international achievements.
As a soloist Martina Filjak performed with the Symphony Orchestra of Aachen, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Staatskapelle Halle and the Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock. Other orchestra engagements brought her to the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires, the The Florida Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony, the Orchestra La Verdi Milano, the San Diego Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Barcelona, the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, the Japan Century Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra as well as the Orchester Philharmonique de Strasbourg.
Additionally, Martina Filjak has worked with conductors such as Michael Schønwandt, Heinrich Schiff, JoAnn Falletta, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Marcus Bosch, Alexander Shelley, Hans Graf, Markus Poschner, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Josep Caballé-Domenech, Carlos Miguel Preto, Ivan Repusic, Paul Goodwin and Pascal Rophe.
Born into a musical family, she began studying piano at the age of five and gave her first public performance at the age of six. She received her musical education at the Zagreb Academy of Music and the Vienna Conservatory, and then completed it in the renowned soloist class in Hannover. She also attended master classes at the prestigious Piano Academy on Lake Como in Italy.
Martina’s wide repertoire includes literature from Bach to Beria and over thirty piano concertos. Kao osoba koja voli prirodu i u njoj je istinski sretna, oduševljava se glazbom koja evocira zvukove prirode i folklorne melodije – primjerice Bartókova suita Na otvorenome, Six Encores od Beria (Wasserklavier, Erdenklavier, Feuerklavier i Luftklavier) te Ravelova Une barque sur l’océan spadaju među njezina najdraža djela. Istovremeno je privlači komorno muziciranje ali i tehnički i intelektualno zahtjevna i komplicirana djela kao što su Beethovenova Hammerklavier Sonata and Bartók’s Piano Concerto no. 2.
During the 21- 22 season she performed alongside the Kansas City Symphony and Michael Francis, the Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock and Marcus Bosch, the Bilbao Symphony and Guenther Neuhold, the HRT Symphony and Pascal Rophe, the Liechtenstein Symphony under Sebastian Lang Lessing as well as the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra and David Danzmayr. The 22 – 23 and the 23 – 24 seasons included invitations to perform at the Mito Festival in Milan; the Teatro La Fenice in Venice; the Schleßwig Holstein Festival in Germany as well as collaborations with the Robert Schumann Philharmonie in Chemnitz, the Slovenian RTV Symphony in Ljubljana, the Staatsorchester Mainz as well as a much awaited debut at the Elbphilharmonie along Staatsorchester Hamburg led by Patrick Hahn. She toured South America, performing with the Ofunam Symphony in Mexico, the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Chile as well as Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Colombia.
The 24 – 25 season saw her perform along orchestras such as Staatskapelle Weimar, Orquestra Sinfonica da Casa da Musica Porto, Orquesta de Valencia, Cape Cod Symphony, The Pannon Philharmonic, The Asheville symphony as well as a reinvitation to Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock; along recitals at Casa da Musica in Porto and Palau de la Musica in Barcelona she performs at festivals such as the Ljubljana festival in Slovenia and the Wonderfeel festival in the Netherlands.
Martina speaks 7 languages fluently. Fortunately for her, as an active performer, she likes to travel.
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. He has performed with renowned orchestras such as the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Berlin Philharmonic. 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 Beatles songs: in addition to the Six Variations on “Blackbird” and arrangements of “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Something”, Guy Braunstein also wrote the “Abbey Road Concerto”, a very virtuosic version of the Beatles’ album “Abbey Road” for solo violin and orchestra.
