Anne Akiko Meyers : Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers (born May 15, 1970) is an American concert violinist. Meyers has toured and collaborated with a number of symphony orchestras, Il Divo, Chris Botti, and Wynton Marsalis. Meyers was featured on MSNBCs Countdown with Keith Olbermann on October 26, 2010. Background : Meyers was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of an artist and college president. Her mother is of Japanese descent. Raised in Southern California, she studied with Shirley Helmick, and then went on to study with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, California. She then proceeded to study with Josef Gingold at Indiana University and Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir and Masao Kawasaki at the Juilliard School in New York City. Combining her junior and senior high school years and graduating early from the Juilliard School at the age of 20, she was touring the world and recorded exclusively for RCA Red Seal. Early career Meyers performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, at the age of twelve, debuted with the New York Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta conducting. When she was sixteen, she signed with ICM Artists and began touring and recording. At the age of eighteen, she recorded her first album in London at the Abbey Road Studios, featuring the Barber and Bruch Concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Having signed an exclusive RCA Red Seal contract at the age of 21, she went on to record a comprehensive discography. At the age of 23, she was the sole recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Instruments Meyers tours with a 1730 Stradivarius violin she owns called the Royal Spanish, a 1697 Stradivarius called Molitor, and has lifetime use, for touring and performances, of the 1741 Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu. The Molitor, which was once purported to have been owned by Napoleon Bonaparte but provenance was established to show the ownership was actually one of Napoleons Generals, Count Gabriel Jean Joseph Molitor, was purchased from Tarisio Auctions on October 14, 2010 for US$3,600,000, at the time the highest recorded auction price for any musical instrument until the Lady Blunt Strad was sold on June 20, 2011. She has used the Molitor in multiple studio recordings including a recording of Bachs Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, BWV 1043 in which, through the magic of modern studio art, she plays both violin parts, one part on the Royal Spanish Strad and the other on the ex-Molitor. On 24 January 2013 the 1741 Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu was purchased by an anonymous buyer for an undisclosed but, reportedly, record amount, and it was announced that Meyers would receive lifetime use of the violin. The purchase price of the violin exceeded $16m (£10.5m). Professional works Meyers has been a regular guest at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, Suntory Hall, Sydney Opera House and a soloist with orchestras such as BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Londons Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Minnesota Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Tokyos NHK Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vienna Symphony, and the Warsaw Philharmonic. A supporter of contemporary composers, she has premiered works by David Baker, Mason Bates, Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Nathan Currier, Roddy Ellias, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Jennifer Higdon, Wynton Marsalis, Olivier Messiaen, Akira Miyoshi, Arvo Pärt, Manuel Maria Ponce, Somei Satoh, Teddy Shapiro, Joseph Schwantner, and Ezequiel Viñao. Meyers asked the jazz musician Wynton Marsalis to write cadenzas for her in Mozarts Violin Concerto in G Major, No.3 which she premiered with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. Meyers has recorded music on numerous labels. Her debut disc, recorded at the age of 18, included the Violin Concerto (Barber) and the Violin Concerto No. 1 (Bruch) with Christopher Seaman and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. RPO Records recorded the sonatas of Saint-Saëns and Fauré. Her RCA catalogue includes Lalos Symphonie Espagnole and Bruchs Scottish Fantasy with Jesús López-Cobos and the Royal Philharmonic; the Franck and Strauss Sonatas; the Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn) and a selection of other works with Andrew Litton and the Philharmonia Orchestra; and Prokofiev Violin Concertos with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under Dmitri Kitajenko. Sonata albums include Salut dAmour featuring many encore pieces with classic Japanese folksongs and one featuring works by Copland, Ives, Piston, and David Baker with pianist Andre-Michel Schub. She recorded works by Debussy, Messiaen, Ravel, Somei Satoh, and Tōru Takemitsu. Two works written expressly for Meyers include a live performance of the Somei Satoh Violin Concerto with Tetsuji Honna and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Angelfire by Pulitzer-prize winning composer Joseph Schwantner with Andrew Litton and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Naxos Records also released a performance of Jennifer Higdons piano trio, featuring Meyers, live from the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival; and she recorded the Bruch Concerto live with the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa with Maestro Hiroyuki Iwaki. Smile was released in 2009 with Akira Eguchi. In September 2010, Seasons...dreams was released, featuring works by Beethoven, Wagner, Schnittke, Debussy, and Vernon Duke, with pianist Reiko Uchida and harpist Emmanuel Ceysson. Meyers was the special guest violinist as part of Il Divos Christmas Tour 2009 and toured with Chris Botti in 2010. Air - The Bach Album debuted at number one on the US Billboard Charts when released on February 14, 2012. Meyers commissioned Mason Bates to write his first violin concerto. She made the world premiere with Leonard Slatkin and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in December 2012. Discography Samuel Barber/Max Bruch Concertos (1988) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman Gabriel Fauré & Camille Saint-Saëns Album (1989) Max Bruch and Édouard Lalo Album (1992) with the RPO and Jesus Lopez-Cobos César Franck and Richard Strauss Sonatas (1993) Felix Mendelssohn (1993) Violin Concerto and other works with the Philharmonia Orchestra & Andrew Litton Salut dAmour (1994) French Orchestral Works (1995) Classical Ecstasy (1996) American Album (1996) Franz Schubert (1997) Sergei Prokofiev Album (1997) with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Dmitri Kitayenko UltraSound Music for the Unborn Child (19990 Violin for Relaxation (2000) Romantic Violin (2001) Smooth Classics (2003) East Meets West (2004) (Japanese/French album) Kisetsu (2002) Somei Satoh Violin Concerto (written for Meyers) Angelfire (2001) Joseph Schwantner ‘Fantasy’ for amplified violin and orchestra (written for Meyers) Jennifer Higdon Piano Trio (2003) Max Bruch Violin Concerto No.1 in g minor Live from Japan (2006) Smile (2008)[14] Seasons...dreams (2009) Pride (In the Name of Love) from Gems with Michael Bolton (2011) Air - The Bach Album with the English Chamber Orchestra (2011) The Four Seasons: The Vivaldi Album (2014) Teaching Meyers was a panelist, recitalist and teacher at the Juilliard Schools Starling-DeLay Symposium in 2006 and in May, 2008 was invited by UCLA as Regents Lecturer in violin. In late 2009, Meyers joined the Butler School of Music at University of Texas at Austin as Distinguished Artist and Professor of Violin.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 01:24:06 +0000
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