Patrick Demenga, State Choir Latvija, Riga Cathedral Boys Choir, Youth Choir Kamēr, Andres Mustonen
Biographie Patrick Demenga, State Choir Latvija, Riga Cathedral Boys Choir, Youth Choir Kamēr, Andres Mustonen
Alexander Knaifel
was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1943, and grew up in St Petersburg. Setting out, initially, to be a cellist, he studied with teachers including Mstislav Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory in the early 1960s. As a composer he was soon allied with an emerging Soviet avant-garde, a network of friends such as Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, Sofia Gubaidulina and Valentin Silvestrov. Like them, he subsequently found his way to a more personal idiom. His own compositions, from the mid-1970s onwards, include a number of slowly evolving pieces: “quiet giants” was his own term for these works, whose quest for beauty often has a metaphysical dimension or a sacred subtext. Knaifel sought to convey something of the heart of faith by, as he put it, "speaking in a low voice, hoping to hear a voice within oneself”.
The premiere performance of Chapter Eight took place in Washington’s National Cathedral in 1995, with Mstislav Rostropovich in the cellist’s role.
Further recordings of the music of Alexander Knaifel on ECM are Svete Tikhiy (2002) with Oleg Malov, the Keller Quartett, Tatiana Melentieva, and Andrei Siegle, Amicta Sole (2005), with Rostropovich and Melentieva plus the Glinka College Boys Choir and the Hermitage Orchestra, Blazhenstva (2008) with Melentieva, Ivan Monighetti, Piotr Migunov, the Hermitage Orchestra and the Lege Artis Choir, and Lukumoriye (2018), with Malov, Migunov, Melentieva, and Lege Artis.
Patrick Demenga
Swiss cellist Patrick Demenga was born in 1962. He studied at the Bern Conservatory, in Cologne with Boris Pergamenschikow, and in New York with Harvey Shapiro. He has premiered works by Isang Yun, Gerhard Schedl, Heinz Holliger and many others. Patrick Demenga first appeared on ECM New Series in 1995 with 12 Hommages à Paul Sacher, with music of Berio, Boulez, Britten, Dutilleux, Ginastera, Henze, Holliger, Lutosławski and more.
Andres Mustonen
was born in Tallinn in 1953. Renowned as both conductor and violinist, he was a founder of the early music consort Hortus Musicus, and has long juxtaposed investigations into old music with ardent championing of the new.
The State Choir Latvija
is the largest professional choir in the Baltic States. Founded in 1942 its repertoire extends from the renaissance to the present day. The Latvija choir has given world premieres of Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry and Lera Auerbach’s Russian Requiem.
Youth Choir Kamēr
was founded in 1990, and established a reputation for its expressive performance style. The choir has commissioned pieces from composers including John Tavener, Giya Kancheli, Dobrinka Tabakova and John Luther Adams, and participated in collaborations with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, Yuri Bashmet, Maxim Rysanov, and others.
The Riga Cathedral Boys Choir was first established in Latvia in 1950, and has since toured the world on many occasions.
