Hildasholmsmusiken

DEAR FRIENDS AND MUSIC-LOVERS…

We’ve been waiting for this… to be back here in Leksand with Hildasholm’s Musiken, opening our hearts to you our audiences, and exploring the joys of music together. A brief personal thought: for me, and all musicians unsurprisingly, music-making is a crucial and essential element in our lives, and this not just because it is our living.…. “Classical music” is such a stiff, limiting term for this phenomena that covers such astonishing ground, and sound, from all over Europe, and much wider, and since many centuries.  And music, of course, is built on rigorous apprenticeship! A child grows up from a tiny tot with an extraordinary sensitivity; the ears waiting to explore sound, the hands ready to build muscle memory, the intellect and the emotions linking into the brain.  This finding the pulse, the time, and harmony – coming together with different voices, is what we are seeking to build and integrate into the Festival, and this is why we are so happy and excited to be working with the Falun Musikkonservatorium, the Falun and Leksand Kulturskjola, and with
the Leksand schools and kindergarten…

But let’s now talk of the three pillars of Hildasholmmusiken, which will be our concerts in Åhls, Djura and Leksand Kyrka:

At Åhls Kyrka we shall open with Bach, the universal and ever- present composer, as the context for our programs – his music unites all times! With a selection of the Goldberg Variations, arranged for string trio, we take off in our concert that boldly spans three centuries by continuing with solo pieces for the string players, e.g. a stunning new Swedish piece for viola solo written by the young Ylva Fred who is swiftly rising to recognition, where violist Mina Fred will sing along with herself on the viola! We also include a beautiful Pastorale from the screen music to the award winning “Babette’s Feast” by Danish composer Per  Nørgaard, and a “Bel Canto” by Poul Ruders. The program concludes with a dark and stormy String trio by Beethoven.

The second program in Djura Kyrka includes Bach too, one of the six sonatas for violin and keyboard, a piece that gives energy and joy. We shall also explore a completely different side of Beethoven, a small Piano trio movement that is gentle, lilting – in a rare moment of serenity for Beethoven. We shall conclude the evening with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet – the Romantic composer to the core – which bows to Bach, but is also conceived as a love song for his wife Clara.

In our last concert at historic (and acoustically wonderful) Leksand Kyrka, we are “Going fishing!” The theme is water – sensing the mists of Böhmen in the Janacek piano pieces In the Mist. Gondolering on the canals of Daniele Rinaldo’s native Venezia in violin/piano pieces by Malipiero, and then being blown over by the doublebass virtuosity of our Latvian maestro performing Vasks´ Bass Trip. We end the concert and the festival with the eternally beloved Forelle Quintet by Franz Schubert.

We’re looking forward to meeting you all. Welcome!

Elisabeth Zeuthen-Schneider
Artistic Director
June 2022

Program

Date Activity Location Time
Tue 13/9 Concert Åhls kyrka i Insjön 19:00
Thu 15/9 Concert Djura kyrka 19:00
Sat 17/9 Concert Leksands kyrka 19:00

Musicans

Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider
Daniele Rinaldo
Einars Everss
Carl-Oskar Österlind

Musicans

Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider, artistic leader & violin

Elisabeth studied at The Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, under professors Milan Vitek and Endre Wolf. Her Soloist Diploma was awarded the highest marks. Her studies continued in the USA, where she got closely associated with members of the renowned Budapest String Quartet Mischa
and Alexander Schneider who taught and mentored her. Violinist Alexander (Sascha) Schneider, created the Prades and Puerto Rico Festivals Taking Pablo Casals out of his self-imposed exile, opposing the regime of Franco in Spain. This provided a link to pre-World War 2. music making.

She has been a soloist with all the major Danish orchestras, and was for a number of years Associate Concertmaster of The Royal Danish Orchestra and later The Danish National Symphony Orchestra. She was the leader of the Trinitatis Chamber Orchestra connected to the Trinitatis Church in Copenhagen, for twenty years doing all the Bach Passions and most of his cantatas with Trinitatis Cantori and their leader, Per Enevold. This church is built together with the iconic Round Tower, the library of King Christian the Second and one of the major Copenhagen attractions. She now combines her performing career with a teaching post as Professor of Violin and Chamber music at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen.  Her students include some of the most talented and interesting musicians coming from Denmark, including Nikolaj Znaider, the two violinists of the Danish Quartet (Rune Tonsgaard and Frederik Øland) , Niklas Walentin and Kirstine Schneider among others.

Carl-Oskar Österlind, cellist

Scandinavian cellist, Carl-Oscar Østerlind is one of his generations most versatile musicians. He has been described by the Los Angeles Times as a ”superb cellist” and was recently awarded the Danish Arts Council´s career grant ”Den Unge Elite”. As a chamber musician, he regularly performs in leading chamber groups in Scandinavia and abroad. In 2010 he won the Danish String Competition and was a top prize winner of the ”Ljunggrenska Competition” in Sweden.

Since his early achievements of winning the Jury´s Special Prize in the Danish-Swedish competition ”Øresund Soloist”, Carl-Oscar Østerlind received many prizes and awards, among others the Jacob Gade Award, Sonning Music Foundation Fellowship, Van Hauen Scholarship and awards from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. Mr. Østerlind worked as a solo cellist in the Danish Chamber Players, Ensemble MidtVest and Esbjerg Ensemble, and as a principal cellist in Copenhagen Philharmonic, Helsingborg and Iceland Symphony Orchestras.

Mr. Østerlind studied at the Royal Academy/Edsberg Institute in Stockholm with Torleif Thedeen, Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen with Morten Zeuthen and at University of Southern California in Los Angeles with Ralph Kirshbaum. Furthermore he received guidance from Frans Helmerson in Piteå and Hans-Jørgen Jensen in Chicago.

Mina Fred, viola

Mina Fred is internationally active as a chamber musician, soloist and improviser. Mina has studied viola at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and the Banff Center for the Arts, Canada with prof. David Takeno and at the Jutland Conservatory of Music in Aarhus at doc. Claus Myrup, where she graduated from the musician line in 2004 and from the soloist diploma class in 2007. During the years 2011–2013, Mina studied free improvisation on viola and voice at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel, with Fred Frith and Alfred Zimmerlin, where she received a Spezializierte Master Freie Improvisation 2013.

She is alternating as a solo violinist in the Danish Chamber Orchestra (Danmarks Underholdningsorkester) and also as a solo violinist in Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen. Mina is frequently hired as a chamber musician and performer in both fixed and varied constellations at chamber and contemporary music festivals, all year round. During the years 2007–2010, Mina was employed as a solo violinist in the Danish regional ensemble Det Jyske Ensemble.

Mina teaches viola at Orkester Norden’s summer courses in Lahti, Finland and regularly leads workshops in free improvisation for both adults and children.

Since 2004, Mina, together with violinists Thomas Bowes and Oscar Perks, is the artistic director of the small, international chamber music festival Langvad Chamber Music Days at Kirsten Kjærs Museum, Denmark.

Daniele Rinaldo, pianist

Hailed as “a pianist of extraordinary dramatic flair” (The New York Times), “a memorable artist… of remarkable maturity and imagination” (El Paìs), the Italian pianist Daniele Rinaldo has already performed as soloist in major venues and festivals all over the world, such as “Rising Stars” in Alice Tully Hall and Chelsea Music Festival in New York, Verbier, Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival, Wigmore Hall, St-Martin-in-the-Fields and Barbican in London, Tonhalle in Zurich, Konzerthaus in Berlin and in the main halls of Paris, Basel, Tokyo, Geneva and Rome, as well as touring extensively Europe, Japan, China and South America.

He received his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in London, at the Accademia Nazionale Santa Cecilia in Rome, at the Musik-Akademie in Basel where he obtained the Artist Diploma, and earlier at the Padua and the New England Conservatories. A pivotal figure in his artistic development has been Maria João Pires, who mentors him still today and with whom he often performs and shares the stage. In addition to his musical career, he holds degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of Padua, as well as a doctorate from IHEID in Geneva. After a period at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Cambridge, he is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Exeter working at the nexus of development, environmental
and mathematical economics.

Einars Everss, contrabass

Einārs Everss is a Latvian double bassist currently based in Copenhagen. Since April 2019 he is a member of Danish National Symphony Orchestra/ DR Symfoniorkestret and since 2021 has been co-principal double bassist (1. solobassist). After a year of studies in Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music with prof. Sergejs Brīnums and after graduating his Bachelor’s and Master’s study programmes in Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (Brno, Czechia) with prof. Miloslav Jelínek, he is currently studying in Soloists class in the Royal Danish Academy of Music with prof. Michal Stadnicki. He is prizewinner of competitions like the 3rd International Stockholm Competition 2014 (Stockholm, Sweden), the 7th International F. Simandl Competition 2014 (Blatná, Czechia), the 7th International K. D. von Dittersdorf Competition 2017 (Banská Bystrica, Slovakia) and semi- finalist in Markneukirchen Wettbewerb 2017 (Markneukirchen, Germany).

As a soloist or chamber musician he has performed in countries like Czechia, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden etc. and as a soloist has played with orchestras like Simfonia Concertante (Riga, Latvia), Chamber Orchestra of Rezekne (Rezekne, Latvia) and PKF – Prague Philharmonia (Prague, Czechia). He was also one of the jury members of J. M. Sperger International Double Bass Quarantine Challenge in summer 2020.