Grach Brings Moscoviya to BeijingEduard Grach, one of Russia's most renowned violinists during the second half of the 20th century, launched a tour in China with his Moscoviya Chamber Orchestra on March 24.Grach and the orchestra have spent the past week and a half travelling to nine major cities in China, including Nanjing, Chengdu, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Changzhou and Zhanjiang. They will finish their tour with a final concert at the Century Theatre in Beijing on Sunday. This trip marks the 10th time Grach has played to audiences in China since his biography, "Lovely Trill," was published here. He is popular enough inside China to have been named an honorary professor at both the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. Born the son of a lawyer in Odessa on the Black Sea in 1930, Grach followed the pattern set by most great musicians and revealed his talent early. "I started to play violin at seven. It never seemed hard for me to sit inside practising while my contemporaries were out playing football," he remembers. His first teacher was Pyotr Stolyarski, whose music school in Odessa brought up a number of other renowned musicians, including violinist David Oistrakh (1908-74) and pianist Emil Gilels (1916-85). Grach's studies were rudely interrupted by World War II, when his family was evacuated to Siberia, but in 1943, Grach was presented with the opportunity to enter the Moscow Conservatory of Music to learn from Abram Yampolsky, a well-known Russian violinist. At a time when many musicians were looking to escape the hardship of life in Russia by performing abroad, Grach remained in his home country. "I chose to stay and I have no regrets," he said. With early victories at international competitions in Budapest (1949), Paris (1955) and Moscow (1962), Grach's musical career got off to a promising start. He rapidly became known for the romanticism of his violin, for a free technique and emotionality that never failed to enchant audiences. Despite his international success, Grach remains in Russia, supporting musical development in his motherland through both his playing and his professorship at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. During the past three decades, he has served as guide to a large group of brilliant young violinists, 20 of whom have won prizes at various national and international competitions. In 1990, not content to limit himself to individual instruction, Grach founded the Moscoviya Chamber Orchestra, whose debut in the Moscow Conservatory's concert hall immediately raised critical eyebrows. Conducted mainly by his students, the orchestra's performances have been described as passionate and technically perfect. The group's repertoire encompasses a wide range, from Vivaldi and Bach to Chopin and Gershwin; and they are known to play difficult pieces like Niccolo Paganini's Moto Perpetuo, which is usually considered to be beyond the ability of most orchestras to perform well. For this current tour, Grach and his orchestra have presented a programme that includes "Air on the G String" by Bach, "Perpetuum Mobile" by Paganini, "The Four Seasons" by Tchaikovsky, "Voices of Spring" by Johann Strauss and "The Barber of Seville" by Rossini. |
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