Boris Brovtsyn
Violin
"His name often appears on international concert programmes when there is an aura of the exquisite, top-class" (Berliner Morgenpost): The Russian violin virtuoso has established himself as one of the most profound and versatile musicians of his generation. His repertoire includes over fifty violin concertos and hundreds of chamber works, some of which he premiered. He is a frequent guest at the Grands Interprètes music series in Geneva and Spectrum Concerts Berlin, bringing him to the Berlin Philharmonie in every season since 2008.
Boris Brovtsyn has performed with, among others, Sir Neville Marriner, Vladimir Jurowski, Neemi Jarvi, Marek Janowski, Vassili Sinaisky, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Mikhail Jurowski, Gerd Albrecht, Alexander Vedernikov, Michael Sanderling, Arvo Volmer and Antony Wit. Mr Brovtsyn has appeared with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, London Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, the Royal Danish Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony, São Paulo Symphony, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic and BBC Scottish Symphony orchestras.
An avid chamber musician, Boris has collaborated with Janine Jansen, Gidon Kremer, Misha Maisky, Kyung-wha Chung, Itamar Golan, Julian Rachlin, Gary Hoffman, Clemens Hagen, Maxim Rysanov, Daishin Kashimoto, Martin Fröst, Nelson Goerner and Denis Matsuev at festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, Verbier Festival and Edinburgh Festival, at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the festivals of Stavanger, Campos do Jordão, Annecy, Utrecht, Jerusalem, and Moscow's December Nights.
Boris Brovtsyn appears on numerous CD’s with Decca, BIS, Onyx and Naxos labels. His recording of Schubert and Schoenberg chamber works with Janine Jansen has won the ECHO Klassik award and the Brahms clarinet quintet with Martin Fröst was nominated for the Gramophone award. He has recorded an all-Schulhoff disc in January 2016, and his CD of Ysaye's solo violin sonatas was released in 2018 to great critical acclaim.
A fourth-generation musician, Boris started to play violin under the guidance of his grandfather, a student of Lev Tzeitlin and Abram Yampolsky. After graduating from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied with Maya Glezarova, Boris made his UK debut with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Rumon Gamba and soon relocated to London. He completed his studies with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and has taught there himself from 2010 until 2016.
Based in Vienna, Boris Brovtsyn holds a professorship at the MUK Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität in Vienna. He also chaired a class at the Trinity College of Music in Greenwich and has given masterclasses all around the world, including Korea, Thailand and Brazil.
Ashley Wass
Piano
Described as an ‘endlessly fascinating artist’, Ashley Wass’s musical career is one of unusual creativity and variety. Alongside his work as soloist and chamber musician, he is co-founder of Mash Productions, was Artistic Director of the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival for eleven years, has devoted over 15 years to music education, and is currently the Director of Music at the Yehudi Menuhin School. The diverse list of people and organisations with whom he has collaborated include film festivals, art galleries and animators, children’s television presenters and stars of the stage and screen, illustrators, literary festivals and renowned authors, and mime artists and comedians.
Ashley began playing the piano at the age of five, and studied music at Chetham’s School of Music from age 11. In his teens he studied on a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where his teachers included Christopher Elton, Maria Curcio and Hamish Milne. His watershed moment came in 1997 when he won the London International Piano Competition (the only British winner this far), a success that led to a recording contract with Naxos, making him the first solo artist to obtain an exclusive deal with the label. His debut recording was a highly praised CD of César Franck piano music, released in 1999. He was also a prizewinner at the Leeds Piano Competition, and is a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.
Ashley has performed at many of the world’s finest concert halls, including the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Konzerthaus. He has performed regularly as soloist with all of the BBC orchestras, the Philharmonia, Orchestre National de Lille, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, RLPO, and Bournemouth Symphony under the baton of conductors such as Simon Rattle, Osmo Vanska, Donald Runnicles, Ilan Volkov and Vassily
Sinaisky.
He appeared alongside the likes of Sir Thomas Allen, Mstislav Rostropovich and Angela Gheorghiu in a gala concert at Buckingham Palace to mark the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a performance broadcast live to millions of viewers around the world. He made his BBC Proms debut in 2008 with Vaughan Williams’ Piano Concerto, and returned in following seasons to perform works by Foulds, Stravinsky, Antheil, and McCabe.
Recent highlights have included a debut at the Melbourne Recital Centre, acclaimed performances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC NOW, and a tour to South America, as well as an extensive solo recital tour with a programme of music inspired by Shakespeare.
Renowned for a broad and eclectic repertoire, Ashley has received great critical acclaim for his recordings of music from a wide range of styles and eras, with glowing reviews of his interpretations of composers such as Liszt, Franck, Beethoven, and Bridge. His survey of Bax’s piano music was nominated for a Gramophone Award and his discography boasts a number of Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ recordings and BBC Music Magazine ‘Choices’.
Much in demand as a chamber musician, Ashley is a frequent guest of international festivals such as Pharos (Cyprus), Bath, Ako (Japan), Cheltenham, Kuhmo, Mecklenburg, Gstaad, City of London, and Ravinia and Marlboro in the USA, playing solo recitals and chamber works with musicians such as Mitsuko Uchida, Sarah Chang, Steven Isserlis, Emmanuel Pahud, Maxim Rysanov, Richard Goode and members of the Guarneri Quartet and Beaux Arts Trio. He is also a co-founder of Trio Apaches, alongside the violinist Matthew Trusler and the cellist Thomas Carroll. The group has broadcast frequently on BBC Radio 3, including Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the BBC NOW, and is renowned for its imaginative programming and engaging stage presence.
A long-standing collaboration with Matthew Trusler has been particularly rewarding and in 2016 they co-founded Mash Productions, a production company that is focused on realising innovative and ambitious projects. Together they have commissioned over a dozen new works from some of the world’s leading composers, produced a series of musical plays, worked with illustrators and animators to create a number of short films set to music, collaborated with Carl Davis and the Chaplin Foundation on a show about the life and music of Charlie Chaplin, and curated a number of mini-festivals for leading arts organisations around the UK. Their acclaimed series for children - Musical Myths - which combines their own specially written scripts with great pieces of classical music has been toured and performed to thousands of children by orchestras around the UK and Europe, including the Bournemouth Symphony, Opera North, Southbank Sinfonia and the Lahti and Latvian Symphony orchestras.
Ashley Wass was the Artistic Director of the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival from 2007-2018 and helped develop the festival into one the UK’s leading events of its type, with with sold-out performances of challenging and diverse repertoire, and regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.
Music education is a central focus of Ashley’s professional life. He was Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music from 2008-2018, Deputy Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music from 2018-2020, and is currently the Director of Music of both the Yehudi Menuhin School in the UK and its sister school in Qingdao.