Pablo Barragán, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, István Várdai, Sárközy Trio
Biography Pablo Barragán, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, István Várdai, Sárközy Trio
Pablo Barragán
The clarinetist, Pablo Barragán is recognised for his refined sound paired with a high skill of craftsmanship, stage charisma and boundless curiosity for the programming of his performances.
Pablo trained at the Seville Conservatory with Antonio Salguero and with Matthias Glander at the Fundación Barenboim-Said in Seville. He is the winner of the Prix Crédit Suisse Jeunes Solistes in 2013, amongst other competitions.
He has worked with orchestras such as the Brucknerhaus Orchestra Linz, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Radio Televisión Española, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra with conductors such as Anja Bihlmaier, Thomas Dausgaard, Daniel Raiskin, and Zsolt Hamar.
Pablo is humbled to collaborate with fabulous chamber music partners such as Liza Ferschtmann, Elena Bashkirova, Beatrice Rana, Kian Soltani, Emmanuel Pahud, the Modigliani Quartet, Schumann Quartet and many more. His Chamber music invitations included performances at Rheingau Music Festival, Classiche Form, the Martha Argerich Festival, the Wigmore Hall London and Tonhalle Zurich.
The 2023/24 season brings solo appearances with orchestras such as the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra in Neumarkt and at the Heidelberger Frühling led by cellist & conductor István Várdai, the Brasov Philharmonic under the direction of Paul Meyer, and the Bursa Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Adrian Prabava among others. He has been invited to open the season for the Cordoba Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Alvaro Albiach.
In the realm of chamber music, he will perform with Noa Wildschut and pianist Frank Dupree at Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam among other venues. Further concerts bring him to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Cologne Philharmonic Hall, as well as to Teatro Ristori in Verona and Auditorium C. Pollini in Padova with the Sitkovetsky Trio and with the Cremona Quartett to Amici della Musica in Florence. Other festival invitations are the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, the Kaposfest in Hungary, the Beethovenfest in Bonn, Festival Monteleón in Spanish León, as well as Música Musika in Bilbao. Pablo will also participate in a tour with Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival Ensemble in South America.
Pablo’s curiosity and eagerness to create are also reflected in the repertoire selection for his February 2022 album BOUNDLESS, on which he has united the diverse sound universes of Weinberg, Bernstein, Prokofiev and Poulenc clarinet sonatas for the music label Aparté. Together with Noa Wildschut and Frank Dupree they will release a recording 24/25, featuring works by Paul Schoenfield, Béla Bartók, Claude Vivier and Ernest Bloch for the label Accentus Classic.
Since 2020 Pablo Barragán is as a Professor at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Seville and at master classes such as Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid.
István Várdai
who was born in Pécs (Hungary) in 1985, was admitted at the age of 12 to the Franz Liszt University of Music in Budapest and studied in Professor László Mezö’s class for “extraordinarily gifted” students. In 2005 he transferred to Reinhard Latzko at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. He also took masterclasses with Natalia Gutman, János Starker and Natalia Shakhovskaya. In 2010 he was awarded the Boris Pergamenschikow Scholarship during the Kronberg Academy’s Cello Masterclasses.
István Várdai has won awards in numerous international competitions. He won the David Popper International Music Competition in Budapest three times (in 2000, 2003 and 2004). In 2006 he was awarded a special prize at the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann in Berlin and won first prize in the International Johannes Brahms Competition in Pörtschach (Austria). He was also an award-winner at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2007 and won the Geneva International Music Competition in 2008. In 2014 he won first prize in the ARD Competition in Munich.
István Várdai’s debut CD, a recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Prokofiev’s Sonata and Janáček’s Pohádka with the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève conducted by Simon Gaudenz, was released in October 2009 (Nascor). In 2010 he recorded the Cello Concerto in C major by Johann Baptist Vanhal with the Camerata Schweiz conducted by Howard Griffith and in 2013 played a selection of Variations in a recording with Walter Delahunt.
Since making his orchestral debut in 1998 in The Hague, István Várdai has performed with internationally renowned orchestras. He has worked, for example, with conductors such as Ádám Fischer, Howard Griffith, Zoltán Kocsis, Josep Pons, Nicolás Pasquet, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Marcus Bosch, Roman Kofman and Simon Gaudenz. In 2010 István Várdai took part in Chamber Music Connects the World, partnering Gidon Kremer, Tatjana Grindenko, Yuri Bashmet and András Schiff. From 2010 to 2013 he studied at Kronberg Academy with Frans Helmerson. His studies were sponsored by the Gerlinde Haber-Schaefer Stipendium.
He has been teaching at Kronberg Academy since October 2013.
István Várdai plays a Montagnana cello built in 1720 and the legendary "Ex du Pré-Harrell" Stradivari built in 1673.
2010 - 2013, he has been studying at Kronberg Academy with Frans Helmerson, funded by the Gerlinde Haber-Schaefer scholarship.
