b i o g r a p h yr
e v i e w swrite
to ManagerDubravka Tomsic, pianist
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b i o g r a p h yr
e v i e w swrite
to Manager |
Dubravka Tomsic, pianist |
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b i o g r a p h y...........back to roster....up June 2012 The celebrated Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic enjoys "something of a cult status among pianophiles" (Gramophone Magazine), with performances that convey "heroic power and Olympian vision" (Los Angeles Times) as well as "splendor, drama, passion, poetry, and subtlety" (Boston Globe). The only protégé of legendary pianist Artur Rubinstein, who considered her "a perfect and marvelous pianist," she gave her first public recital at age five and later embarked on an international career that took her to five continents, performing more than four thousand concerts to date. Despite her legendary stature in music circles, it was only in 1989, after a hiatus of almost thirty years, that Tomsic was reintroduced to American audiences with a triumphant gala performance at the Newport Music Festival. In quick succession recitals at the prestigious series of Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Kansas City, Atlanta, Seattle, and Fort Worth followed, leading to countless re-engagements ever since. American audiences could most recently appreciate Tomsic’s artistry when she came on tour in April 2011, with stops at The Grand Rapids Symphony, San Francisco Performances, Boston Celebrity Series, Union College Concert Series, Huntsville Chamber Music Guild Celebrity Series, Middlebury College and the Steinway Society in San José. The previous season’s highlights included return engagements to the Slovenia Philharmonic, Monterey Symphony (to which she will return in 2013), and Huntsville Symphony. In April 2008, Tomsic returned to the United States with appearances at the Celebrity Series in Boston, San Francisco Performances, the Master Pianists Series in Kansas City, the Gilmore Festival, concerts in Middlebury and Schenectady, as well as her debut with the Honolulu Symphony. She also performed at the Festival International Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, France, and returned to the London Festival Orchestra. The season before, she opened again at the Newport Festival, made debuts with the Louisiana Philharmonic and the London Festival Orchestra, and returned to the Monterey Symphony with Chopin’s E minor Concerto. Highlights of recent seasons include several performances with the Boston Symphony under both Seiji Ozawa and Bernard Haitink at Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall, a solo recital at the Tanglewood Festival, the Pasadena Symphony under Jorge Mester, the Mexico City Philharmonic and recitals in Portland, Rockport, and at New York’s Alice Tully Hall. Over the course of her career, Tomsic has also been heard in the major halls of Munich, Berlin, Prague, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Madrid, Amsterdam, London and Rome and at the international festivals of Dubrovnik, Vienna, Prague, Naples, Dresden, Paris, Mexico City, Joliette (Canada), Newport, Tanglewood, and Mostly Mozart in New York City. Equally in demand as a soloist with orchestra, she has appeared with the Vienna Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, Czech Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony, Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, Dresden Staatskapelle, Moscow State Orchestra, the symphonies of Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, San Francisco and the major orchestras of Australia. More than eighty CD recordings released since 1987 attest to Dubravka Tomsic’s status as a major recording artist. In addition to The Art of Dubravka Tomsic and a disc of favorite encores, she has recorded concertos by Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Liszt, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saens, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky, and recital works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Mozart, Scarlatti and Srebotnjak. She can be heard on Vox Classics, Koch International and other labels. In 2003 she won the Grand Prix du Disque of the Franz Liszt Society in Budapest for her CD on the ipo label, featuring an all-Liszt program that includes the B minor Sonata. Her two newest releases on ipo consist of works by Mozart and Chopin. Tomsic began her studies at the Ljubljana Academy of Music and at age twelve moved to New York on the recommendation of Claudio Arrau to study with Katherine Bacon at the Juilliard School. While still a teenager she earned a Bachelor of Science and Diploma in Piano with two special awards and made her New York Philharmonic, Town Hall and Chicago recital debuts. She also gave a recital at Carnegie Hall about which Artur Rubinstein wrote a glowing account in his memoirs My Many Years. As a young pianist, Dubravka Tomsic won many awards and competitions and now serves as juror for several major international piano competitions, including the Van Cliburn, Leeds, Beethoven, Clara Haskil, Santander, AXA Dublin and the International Piano-e-Competition in Minneapolis. In May 2005 she was officially awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Ljubljana by the city’s mayor. She makes her home there and is Full Professor at the Ljubljana University - Academy of Music.
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r e v i e w s...........back to roster....up The Huntsville Times, 1/26/09 Tomsic, a protege of Artur Rubinstein, performed Saturday evening with an artful intelligence that captivated the audience and invigorated the orchestra. Despite her romantic approach to interpretation, the performance was earnest and never self-indulgent. While the fluid tempi of the first movement were at times a struggle for an impatient orchestra, her second movement was dark, somber and thoughtful. The third and final movement was one of irresistible energy coupled with a rare technical elegance, making even difficult passages sound miraculously melodic. The concerto concluded convincingly, leaving a breathless audience standing in amazement. Tomsic has mastered the illusion of tranquil power, gliding through the music's considerable physical demands with grace, as though dancing with a good friend. She played with an expansive tone, silky smooth and pliant, but with a tensile strength closer to steel. She could shift from explosive chords to fairy-dust runs in a second without even blinking. Young musicians are often flash and angularity, but Tomsic's flash was contained inside the music, which took on a deep, mellow warmth throughout. For Tomsic, "pacing is very important. You have to feel it inside." When Tomsic played, her pacing entranced everyone, so that Brahms' second movement felt like the gentle unfolding of a flower into sunlight. Tomsic's was an inspiring performance, and it closed the concert with a standing ovation. One of the encores in Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic’s incandescent return to the Celebrity Series of Boston was Chopin’s melancholy Waltz in C-sharp minor, the same waltz Evgeny Kissin played as an encore to one of his recent Brahms-concerto concerts with Levine and the BSO. But Tomsic, playing it like Chopin, and like a waltz, brought some listeners close to tears. Her last BSO appearance was opening night of 2003, under Bernard Haitink, but she hasn’t yet played here for Levine. What’s he waiting for? She’s a vastly greater musician than Kissin, and deeper than almost any of Levine’s other pianists. Even at her most dazzling, as in her four breathless, buoyant Scarlatti sonatas, or in the most riveting virtuosic passages of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, she’s always serving the music. “She makes music do what it’s supposed to do,” a friend hearing her for the first time remarked in wonderment. More Scarlatti led off the encores, among them the zippy Villa-Lobos Policinelle, which ended hilariously with double glissandos in opposite directions. Tomsic’s last Boston recital was four years ago. We can’t afford to be without her this long. Tomsic plays with enormous strength, beautiful articulation, a sense of style (though it is generally one style), and a relaxed command that says she has nothing left to prove. She is the antithesis of Martha Argerich, who seems always to be searching for something unrealizable and leaves you in a state of nervous exhaustion. Monterey County Herald, 10/17/06 Hearing soloist Dubravka Tomsic with Bragado was a major treat. The two have worked together elsewhere but this is the first time they have appeared together with the Monterey Symphony, though Tomsic has played with the ensemble many times in the past. Her popularity with the audience hasn't waned nor has the power of her virtuoso piano playing. The Salinas Californian, 10/15/06 Tomsic, looking resplendent and colorful on stage, blazed her way through Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor with impressive confidence and beguiling charm. She treated the audience to an elegant performance that was as full of subtle color and shading as it was of effortless virtuosity. The beautifully shaped melodies in the first and second movements were totally beguiling, and her fleet performance of the Vivace finale was astonishing for its superlative mastery. The cumulative effect was extraordinary. The Boston Globe, June 14, 2004 "With fire and grace at her fingertips, pianist soars with Chopin" "Her playing is big, opulently colored, imaginatively pedaled; it is generously emotional but never sentimental." "And she is technically commanding, often to a breathtaking degree." Boston Herald, October 9, 2004 "Tomsic is a pianist of the highest order, and whatever she plays should command attention." "Tomsic showed what pianistic art can become: taking the ordinary recital to levels of the highest musical achievement, tackling art at its foremost." "It was an evening of the highest proportions, rendered by an artist of the greatest talent." |
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