DANIEL HOPE

The British violinist, Daniel Hope, is renowned the world over for his musical versatility and creativity. In January 2007 he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, with whom he will now record a variety of projects. In 2004 Hope won three major awards for his recording of Berg and Britten Concerti - the Classical Brit Awards in England, and in Germany the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and the ECHO Klassik Prize. At the 2005 Grammy™ Awards he received two nominations; and in October 2006 he won the ECHO Prize for the third year in succession. The New York Times said of Hope, May 2004: “You never know what the brilliant young British violinist Daniel Hope, acclaimed for his ventures into contemporary music, will do next. He has collaborated with actors on works that combine music and words and explored Indian music and jazz…he plays with the unsparing intensity and gritty incisiveness of an unabashed champion of contemporary music. ” Among the conductors with whom Hope has worked are Kurt Masur, Mstislav Rostropovich, Roger Norrington, Yehudi Menuhin, Michel Plasson, Kent Nagano, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Litton, Jeffrey Tate, Eliahu Inbal, Vladimir Fedosseyev, John Axelrod, Thomas Hengelbrock and Hans Graf. He appears regularly with major orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Dresden Staatskapelle, Royal Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Detroit Symphony, Concerto Köln, Dallas Symphony, RSO-Vienna, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, RSO Moscow, Orchestre de Toulouse, Wiener Kammerorchester, Royal Scottish National, the Hallé, NDR-Hannover and many others. He has performed in all the world’s major halls, including the Berlin Philharmonie, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, Théatre des Champs-Elysées Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Barbican, the Wigmore, the Queen Elizabeth and Royal Albert Halls. Daniel Hope devotes a portion of his time to conceptual projects. In addition he writes scripts and is in demand as a presenter for radio and television. A close association with the Oscar™ winning actor Klaus Maria Brandauer has led to a series of highly successful projects such as “War and Pieces” and “Mozart Unplugged!” ; other evenings combining words and music created by Hope include “An Audience with Beethoven” with Mia Farrow; “Forbidden not forgotten” with chamber music and poetry from the Theresienstadt Ghetto; and “Music to die for!”, a play written by the Whitbread-winner author Christopher Hope with music performed by Hope and jazz-pianist Uri Caine, directed by Jonathan Moore. Many of these projects receive their first performances at the Savannah Music Festival in Georgia USA, where Daniel Hope is Associate Artistic Director. Hope directs many chamber orchestras from the violin, such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (in a recording of Bach Violin Concerti), as well as the Camerata Salzburg and the period-instrument ensemble Concerto Köln. He has collaborated with musicians from a variety of genres, including vocalist Bobby McFerrin, bassist Edgar Meyer and the former drummer of The Police, Stewart Copeland. His Grammy™ nominated project “East meets West”, released on CD by Warner Classics, presents works for violin inspired by Ravi Shankar. A pupil at Highgate School in London, from 1992-98 he was a student of the Russian pedagogue, Zakhar Bron, graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he holds the DipRAM and ARAM. At the age of ten Daniel Hope appeared on British television playing Shostakovich with the bassist, Gary Karr. The following year he was invited by Yehudi Menuhin to perform Bartok Duos for German television. This was the beginning of a long association, culminating in over sixty concerts together, including Lord Menuhin’s final concert, on March 7th 1999 in Düsseldorf, where Hope performed the Schnittke Violin Concerto. Hope was voted „Classical Performer 2001” by London’s Evening Standard newspaper, and the Observer newspaper in London since called him “the most exciting British string player since Jacqueline du Pré.” In April 2002 Daniel Hope became the youngest ever member of the legendary Beaux Arts Trio, with whom he toured all major venues in Europe and North America, and with whom he celebrated the Ensemble’s 50th anniversary in 2005. The Boston Globe recently wrote of the new formation: “the current lineup of players may be the strongest in its history”. The Trio received a Grammy™ nomination in 2007. Hope will continue in this position until the end of the 2007/8 season. Hope has appeared at major festivals including the Salzburger Festspiele, BBC Proms, Lucerne, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Colmar, Schleswig-Holstein, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Vail USA, Feldkirch, Klangbogen Vienna, Gstaad, Bath, Spannungen, San Sebastian, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Carinthian Summer. His chamber music partners have included Menahem Pressler, Yuri Bashmet, Sebastian Knauer, Thomas Adès, Lynn Harrell, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Katja and Marielle Labèque, Tabea Zimmermann, Arianna Zukerman, Mark Padmore, Pieter Wispelwey and Philippe Entremont. Daniel Hope’s dedication to contemporary music is highlighted through close contacts with several eminent composers, such as Alfred Schnittke, with whom he worked, planning the ‘Schnittke at 60’ Festival at the Royal Academy in London in March 1994. In March 2003 Hope gave the world première of Schnittke’s newly discovered Sonata 1955 at London’s South Bank, now released on the Warner CD “East meets West”. He has collaborated with composers such as Kurtág, Gubaidulina, Penderecki, Turnage, Halffter and HK Gruber. In April 1995 Hope worked with Toru Takemitsu, recording his violin concerto “Nostalghia”, which together with the concertos by Kurt Weill and Schnittke, were released on CD (NI 5582) in February 1999 by Nimbus Records. His second CD, with works by Shostakovich, Schnittke, Pärt and Penderecki, was released by Nimbus in March 2000. BBC Music magazine’s Stephen Johnson said of it: “… I’ve never heard a more compelling account of the Shostakovich Sonata – not even from David Oistrakh… ” From 2004-2006 Hope made a total of eight award-winning recordings for Warner Classics: these included the world première recording of the critically-revised Alban Berg Violin Concerto and Benjamin Britten’s Concerto, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Paul Watkins, which was released in Spring of 2004. This followed Hope’s world première performance of the revised Berg Concerto in October 1996 in Vienna, after special permission was granted to him by the Alban Berg Foundation. Michael Kennedy, in London’s Sunday Telegraph said of Hope’s recording - “these are magnificent performances….I do not think I have ever heard a finer account of the Berg than Daniel Hope gives here, not only played to technical perfection but with its poignant emotional content - realised to the full.” Warner also released Hope’s world première recording of John Fould’s “Apotheosis – in memoriam Joseph Joachim” with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo; a disc of Mozart with Sir Roger Norrington, the pianist Sebastian Knauer and the Camerata Salzburg; the two Shostakovich Violin Concerti with Maxim Shostakovich and the BBC Symphony Orchestra; and the Bach Concerti with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, directed by Hope from the violin. Daniel Hope continues to actively commission works by young composers. These have included a Violin Concerto “Ballad of Ariel” by Jan Müller-Wieland, whose première was given in Berlin in September 2002; and a work by British composer Huw Watkins. Roxanna Panufnik composed a Violin Concerto called “Abraham” for Hope which received its première at the Savannah Music Festival in March 2005; and on behalf of the Beaux Arts Trio Hope has commissioned works for Piano Trio by György Kurtág, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Uri Caine, Jan Müller-Wieland, and Mauricio Kagel. This season will see Hope’s debuts with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony and Toronto and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, recitals in London, New York, Paris and Barcelona, and his first recordings as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist – the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; and a Theresienstadt project with Anne Sofie von Otter and Christian Gerharer.