Torleif Thedéen & Marianna Shirinyan
Biography Torleif Thedéen & Marianna Shirinyan
Torleif Thedéen
Swedish cellist Torleif Thedéen is one of the most distinguished instrumentalists in the Nordic countries and enjoys an international profile as a recitalist, concerto soloist, recording artist and pedagogue. He is a first prize winner of international cello competitions, including the Casals Competition. He is Visiting Professor of cello at the Royal College of Music in London and Professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.
In a career spanning four decades, Torleif has performed with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, among them the Czech Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, The Hallé Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, City of Birmingham SO,Dresden philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Philharmonic.
He has worked with conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paavo Berglund, Petrenko, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Franz Welser-Möst, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Mario Venzago and Leif Segerstam. He continues to perform with all the major Nordic orchestras and enjoys a burgeoning relationship with orchestras and festivals in the Antipodes.
As a chamber musician, Torleif is familiar with the prestigious stages of the Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, Philharmonie in Berlin and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has appeared at the Prague Spring and the Verbier Festivals, and at the chamber music festivals in Schleswig-Holstein, Bordeaux, Oslo, Bath, Stavanger, Kuhmo and beyond. His collaborators have included Janine Jansen, Marianna Shirinyan, Julian Rachlin, Itamar Golan, Maxim Rysanov, Leif Ove Andsnes, Marc-André Hamelin, Lars Anders Tomter, Henning Kraggerud,
Roland Pöntinen and Martin Fröst.
Torleif’s recordings have attracted numerous accolades. He was awarded the Edison Prize in 2018 for his recording of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with Martin Fröst, Lucas Debargue and Janine Jansen on the Sony label. His recording of the Shostakovich Cello Concertos won a Cannes Classical Award and his account of the Bach Cello Suites was selected as a ‘Choice of the month’ by BBC Music Magazine. His discography also includes the concertos of Dvořák, Elgar, Saint-Saens, Lalo,Kabalevsky,Lutoslawski and a wealth of contemporary music. He plays the 1783 Guadagnini cello on loan from the Norwegian Dextra foundation, previously owned by M. Rostropovich.
Marianna Shirinya
Armenian-born Marianna Shirinyan is one of the most creative and in sought after pianists in Europe today. Her vibrant and virtuos musicianship puts her in demand, both as soloist and as chamber musician. Shirinyan plays with great sensitivity, understanding, technical brilliance and beauty of tone, which allows her to offer a wide range of repertoire. Her love for the music and her joy in sharing it with a larger audience are apparent in her performances.
She has received Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s prestigious P2 award for her contribution to Danish music life and the critics prize of the association of Danish critics. She is a frequent guest at a string of international music festivals, among them the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Bodensee Festival, the Schwetzinger Festspiele, MDR Summer Music Festival, Festspillene in Bergen.
Simultaneously she has won the reputation of being one of this generations leading pianists through solo appearances with orchestras as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras, Munich Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice to name a few. She enjoyed collaborations with conductors such as Michael Balke, Lawrence Foster, Zoltan Kocsis, Antonello Manacorda, Jun Märkl, Eva Ollikainen, Daniel Raiskin, Lan Shui, Thomas Søndergård, Marc Soustrot, Krysztof Urbanski and Joshua Weilerstein.
Shirinyan is a professor of piano at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, a Steinway artist and artistic director of the Oremandsgaard Chamber Music Festival in Denmark. From the summer 2020 also co-artistic director of the Valdres Sommersymfoni in Norway.
Shirinyan has a bright discography. All the CD’s has been received enthusiastically by international reviewers and listeners alike. Her latest release, the Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra by Louis Glass which she has recorded together with the Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz under the baton of maestro Daniel Raiskin has been awarded the P2 prize of the Danish radio in 2018.
