Inbal Segev & Juho Pohjonen
Biographie Inbal Segev & Juho Pohjonen
Inbal Segev
Segev’s playing has been described as “characterized by a strong and warm tone … delivered with impressive fluency and style” by The Strad, with “rich tone and supple technique” by The Baltimore Sun, and “first class,” “richly inspired,” and “very moving indeed,” by Gramophone. Equally committed to new repertoire and masterworks, Segev brings interpretations that are both unreservedly natural and insightful to the vast range of music she performs.
Inbal Segev has performed as soloist with top orchestras around the world including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Bangor Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Boulder Chamber Orchestra, San Juan Symphony in Colorado, Arkansas Symphony, Mobile Symphony, California Symphony, Castleton Festival Orchestra with Lorin Maazel, Bogotá Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Dortmund Philharmonic, the Haifa and Be’er Sheva Symphonies in Israel, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Polish National Radio Symphony, the Bangkok Symphony, and more. She made debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic, led by Zubin Mehta, at age 17.
Segev’s repertoire includes all of the standard concerti and solo works for cello, as well as new pieces and rarely performed gems. In April 2018, Segev will give the premiere of a new piece by Timo Andres at The Metropolitan Museum. In 2017, Segev gave the world premiere of Dan Visconti’s cello concerto, Tangle Eye, with the California Symphony led by Donato Cabrera. She commissioned and premiered Gity Razaz’s Legend of Sigh for cello and electronics at National Sawdust in Brooklyn and has premiered new cello concertos by Avner Dorman and Lucas Richman. She has also performed jazz composer David Baker’s cello concerto in New York, the U.S. premiere of English composer Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Cello Concerto in D Major, and was the first cellist to perform Henri Dutilleux’s challenging Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher for solo cello at Carnegie Hall. Inbal Segev co-curated the inaugural Baltimore Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival with Marin Alsop in summer 2017.
Inbal Segev is a founding member of the Amerigo Trio with former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and violist Karen Dreyfus. She has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and has collaborated with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Pamela Frank, Jeremy Denk, Anthony McGill, Jason Vieaux, Gilbert Kalish, Michael Tree, Anne Akiko Meyers, the American Chamber Players, and the Vogler Quartet. Festival appearances include the Banff, Ravinia, Bowdoin, Olympic, Cape & Islands, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra New Music festivals in North America; the Siena, Rolandseck, and Montpellier festivals in Europe; and the Jerusalem Music Center and Upper Galilee festivals in Israel.
Segev released her recording of the complete Cello Suites of J.S. Bach in fall 2015 on the Vox label, to critical acclaim and a spot on The New York Times Classical Playlist. Audiences have the opportunity to look behind the scenes at the making of Segev’s album through a companion documentary film about her journey through the music of Bach. She has performed Bach’s Cello Suites in venues around the world including Lincoln Center and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Shanghai Concert Hall, and Henry Crown Hall in the Jerusalem Theatre.
Her discography also includes Lucas Richman’s Three Pieces for Cello and Orchestra with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (Albany), Sonatas by Beethoven and Boccherini (Opus One), Nigun (Vox), and Max Schubel’s Concerto for Cello and Horn (Opus One). With the Amerigo Trio she has recorded serenades by Dohnányi (Navona). Her recording with pianist Juho Pohjonen of the music of Chopin, Schumann, and Grieg will be released in 2018.
Inbal Segev’s many honors include the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship and top prizes at the Pablo Casals, Paulo, and Washington International Competitions. She began playing the cello in Israel at age five and at 16 was invited by Isaac Stern to come to the U.S. to continue her studies. She earned degrees from The Juilliard School and Yale University. Inbal Segev lives in New York City with her husband and three children. Her cello was made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1673.
Inbal Segev's YouTube channel, featuring music videos and her popular masterclass series Musings with Inbal Segev, has thousands of subscribers and nearly half a million views.
Juho Pohjonen
Celebrated as one of Finland's most outstanding pianists, Juho Pohjonen has received widespread acclaim for his profound musicianship and distinctive interpretations of a broad range of repertoire from Bach to Salonen. His interpretations are known for their intensity, thoughtfulness, and fearless musical conviction.
Highlights of Mr. Pohjonen’s 2017-18 season include a remarkable summer festival circuit, with performances at Music@Menlo, the Santa Fe Chamber Music and Ravinia Festivals, Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival. Concerto appearances include Greenwich Symphony and Turku and Tampere Philharmonic Orchestras, performing Saint-Saens Concerto No.5, Op. 103, Esa-Pekka Salonen Piano Concerto and Einar Englund’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In recital, he performs at the National Gallery of Art, Frederic Chopin Society, Meany Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Washington, La Jolla Music Society, Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, Mobile Chamber Music Society, and Philip Lorenz Memorial Keyboard Concerts in Fresno. He continues his close association with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall, and on tour in Chicago, Birmingham, Asheville, NC, Purchase, NY, Athens, GA and Ashland, OR, as well as in Beijing, Seoul, and Taiwan. He appears frequently with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, since his tenure with the CMS Two Residency Program for Outstanding Young Artists from 2009-2012.
Recent highlights include debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra, Vancouver and Baltimore Symphonies, and chamber programs at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and the Library of Congress. European engagements have included performances with the Szczecin Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony, and Antalya State Symphony. Mr. Pohjonen received highly praise for his interpretation of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic and conductor JoAnn Falletta, which he also performed across England with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Kirill Karabits. In 2015, Mr. Pohjonen opened the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s season in performances of the Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with Jeffrey Kahane, and made his debut with Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich performing Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto with conductor Lionel Bringuier. In 2016, the pianist debuted at the Grant Park Music Festival performing Chopins’s Piano Concerto No. 2, for which Chicago Tribune praised him for his “pearly tone, articulate touch and supple legato…His sensitivity in unfurling Chopin’s intimate musical grammar was always evident.” Additionally, he gave stunning recital debuts at Beethoven-Haus in Bonn for their Klaviersommer Festival and the Ravinia Festival, and he performed Mozart with the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul, and in Mexico’s Palacio De Bellas Artes with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional.
Mr. Pohjonen has given recitals in New York (Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center), Washington, D.C. (Kennedy Center), San Francisco, Vancouver, Detroit, La Jolla and in London (Wigmore Hall), Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Warsaw, Hong Kong, Antwerp, and at the Lucerne Piano, Gilmore, Savonlinna, Bergen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festivals. He has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Danish National, Malmö, Finnish Radio Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Scottish Chamber and Philharmonia Orchestras, Bournemouth Symphony, Zagrebacka Filharmonija and Lahti Symphony, with which he toured Japan. Pohjonen performs with many of the world’s foremost conductors including Marin Alsop, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Markus Stenz, Pinchas Zukerman, Lionel Bringuier, Kirill Karabits, and Marek Janowski among others. A frequent guest of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Pohjonen enjoys frequent collaboration with its renowned Music Director, Robert Spano.
Mr. Pohjonen's debut recording Plateaux featured the works of Scandinavian composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen; the Dacapo Records album comprises piano concerto Plateaux pour Piano et Orchestre with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and solo piano suite For Piano. His sensational opening recital at Music@Menlo’s 2010 Festival was recorded for the Music@Menlo Live 2010 series. The album, Maps and Legends, features Mozart's Sonata in A Major, K.331, Grieg's Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song in G Minor, Op. 24, and Handel's Suite in B-flat Major. Recently, Pohjonen and his colleagues Petteri Iivonen and Samuli Peltonen, who together form the Sibelius Piano Trio, released a recording on Yarlung Records in honor of Finland’s centennial, described by Sterophile as “a gorgeous debut.” A new recording slated for release in 2018 features the music of Chopin, Schumann, and Grieg with cellist Inbal Segev.
Mr. Pohjonen's studies began in 1989 when he entered the Junior Academy of the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. He studied with Meri Louhos and Hui-Ying Liu at the Sibelius Academy where he completed his Master's Degree in 2008. Mr. Pohjonen has also participated in several master classes of world-class pianists such as Sir András Schiff, Leon Fleisher, Jacob Lateiner and Barry Douglas.
In 2009, Juho Pohjonen was selected by Sir András Schiff as winner of the Klavier Festival Ruhr Scholarship. In addition, he has won numerous prizes in both Finnish and international competitions, including First Prize at the 2004 Nordic Piano Competition in Nyborg, Denmark, First Prize at the 2000 International Young Artists Concerto Competition in Stockholm, the Prokofiev Prize at the 2003 AXA Dublin International Piano Competition and a prize at the 2002 Helsinki International Maj Lind Piano Competition.
