The eagerly anticipated Celebrity Concert, and highlight of Con Brio’s current Sligo Music Series, will take place next Friday week, April 8.
Previous Celebrity Concerts have featured internationally renowned musicians such as violinist Tasmin Little and pianists Joanna MacGregor and Pascal Rogé. The performer for this season’s concert is at least as renowned as previous performers, and possibly even more so, it is the extraordinary English violinist Chloë Hanslip.
Born in Guildford, Surrey in 1987 Chloë has been playing the violin since she was two. At the age of four she performed solo at the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre. When she was five she performed for Yehudi Menuhin and subsequently, at his invitation, studied with Natasha Boyarskaya at the Yehudi Menuhin School.
By ten she had played in major concert halls throughout Europe and North America, including Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Albert Hall in London.
In 1995 she began studying in Germany with Professor Zakhar Bron, the teacher of Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin. In 1997 Hanslip was featured in a television documentary in Germany with Igor Oistrakh and Professor Bron. She was also featured in the BBC documentary Can You Make a Genius? screened in 2001 on BBC1 and played the child prodigy violinist alongside Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler in the film Onegin.
At 13 she was the youngest recording artist ever to be signed to Warner Classics UK. Her debut album, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra under Paul Mann, was released in September 2001 to great critical acclaim. Her second CD, a recording of Max Bruch’s Concerti No. 1 and No. 3 with the LSO under Martyn Brabbins, was released in 2002.
Chloë Hanslip has received numerous awards for her playing, including first prize and four special prizes in the 2nd International Violin Competition in Novosibirsk, Russia, resulting in concerts in Russia, France and Japan.
In 2000 she was awarded a Scholarship by the Sibelius Foundation, one of Finland’s highest honours, presented by the Finnish Ambassador. Also in 2000 she was nominated by Justus Frantz for the Prix Davidoff. In 2002 she was awarded the Echo Klassik Award for Best Young Artist for her debut album “Chloë”.
For her Sligo recital Chloë will be accompanied by one of Britain’s most respected and versatile pianists, Danny Driver.
The wonderful programme for this concert includes Beethoven’s brilliant and powerful Kreutzer Sonata, Prokofiev’s Cinq mélodies, Op. 35b and Richard Strauss’ lyrically beautiful Sonata for Violin and Piano in E flat, Op. 18.
This is a concert not to be missed. In the Sunday Business Post last weekend music critic Dick O’Riordan wrote “this English duo has been dubbed the dream team, even in an era when great artists are judged not by talent alone but by their celeb quotient.
“No matter how, or by whom, Hanslip and Driver are measured celeb-wise, they are blindingly brilliant performers…”
The concert takes place in The Model and tickets at €20 can be obtained from The Model, phone 071-9141405 or online at www.themodel.ie
