Jazzissimo Matthias Well & Lilian Akopova

• Alexander Rosenblatt (b. 1956): Carmen Fantasy (Arr. for Violin & Piano):
• 1 Rosenblatt: Carmen Fantasy (Arr. for Violin & Piano) 09:47
• Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992): L'histoire du Tango:
• 2 Piazzolla: L'histoire du Tango: III. Nightclub 1960 (Arr. D. Varelas for Violin & Piano) 05:18
• Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937): Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77:
• 3 Ravel: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77: I. Allegretto 07:40
• 4 Ravel: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77: II. Blues. Moderato 05:46
• 5 Ravel: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77: III. Perpetuum mobile. Allegro 03:43
• George Gershwin (1898 - 1937): My Man's Gone Now (From "Porgy and Bess") [Arr. J. Heifetz for Violin & Piano]:
• 6 Gershwin: My Man's Gone Now (From "Porgy and Bess") [Arr. J. Heifetz for Violin & Piano] 04:11
• Cojocaru Vladislav: Kaleidoscope:
• 7 Vladislav: Kaleidoscope 05:18
• Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974): Le boeuf sur le toit, Op. 58 (Version for Violin & Piano):
• 8 Milhaud: Le boeuf sur le toit, Op. 58 (Version for Violin & Piano) 07:34
• Total Runtime 49:17

Info for Jazzissimo

An award-winning duo walks the fine line between classical music and jazz on its new GENUIN album: violinist Matthias Well from Munich and Ukrainian pianist Lilian Akopova present syncopated, bluenote-laden sounds by Astor Piazzolla, Maurice Ravel and George Gershwin, as well as two spectacular pieces of recent date: Alexander Rosenblatt's virtuosic Carmen Fantasie and Vladislav Cojocaru's initially melancholy, later groovy Kaleidoscope - a piece dedicated to Akopova and Well, recorded here for the first time. The album title "Jazzissimo" is based on Matthias Well's first album from 2017. This is entitled "Funeralissimo" and contains surprisingly cheerful funeral music from various countries around the world. It has also been released by GENUIN Classics.

Of "Jazzissimo," author Ralf Dombrowski writes in the booklet, "It's an amazing programmatic arc, and it fits the program in its entirety that Matthias Well and Lilian Akopova have put together. There is Darius Milhaud, who brackets a pinch of ragtime burlesque with motivic ideas that reach into Roma melodicism, and then ironizes the whole thing with subtle dissonance. George Gershwin contributes his part with the lullaby-like Afro-Americanesque à la Porgy & Bess, which, however, in the adaptation by Jascha Heifetz leads into concert hall classical music. Astor Piazzolla loves vocal access, shapes his melodies with a lightness of compositional concept, which he allows to enmesh itself in a contrasting framework of small feeling and great pathos. Vladislav Cojocaru approaches the attitude from a contemporary perspective, allowing a neo-Romantic album leaf to flow into ornamental exuberance inspired by Stéphane Grappelli. And Maurice Ravel, in the guise of his movements of the Blues Sonata, presents no less than three options for moving along the edges of genres. The Allegretto focuses on the flow of melodies, which run into each other in a musical tableau and embrace moods in close communication between piano and violin. The second movement Blues sounds film-musical grotesque with a touch of vaudeville, and finally the Allegro heightens the mood of the circus-like into the virtuosic, winking in seriousness, simultaneously serving the habits of the bourgeois concert hall and leaving them behind on another level.

Thus Matthias Well and Lilian Akopova close the circle to the dimensions of the creative. They play neither jazz nor classical, nor tango nor avant-garde. For they leave the music in limbo, juxtapose what they feel to be equal and allow themselves the possibility to let related as well as opposites shine through their skills. A form of freedom."

Matthias Well, violin
Lilian Akopova, piano

Matthias Well
Born the son of the Bavarian musician Michael Well (known for the music and cabaret group “Biermösl Blosn”) in Munich in 1993, German-French violinist Matthias Well first received musical training on the violin at the age of five.

Matthias Well studied at the University of Music and Per forming Arts Munich with Mikyung Lee and, in addition to a bachelor’s degree, obtained two master’s degrees, which he completed with distinction. In addition, his artistic development was in uenced and supported by the violinist Kirill Troussov. He has also received valuable musical insight from attending master classes given by well-known musicians such as James Ehnes, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Augustin Hadelich, Zakhar Bron, and Julia Fischer.

In 2016, Matthias Well and his sister, the cellist Maria Well, won the Special Prize of the Kulturkreis Gasteig for their outstanding interpretation of a modern work. Thanks to the mentorship of Julia Fischer, he received the Fanny Mendelssohn Young Artist Award, enabling him to complete his debut CD, Funeralissimo. The release was a notable success, reaching the top 20 of the German classical music charts and attracting a great deal of attention and high critical praise from German media.

Matthias Well has performed as a soloist with, among others, members of the Munich Philharmonic, the Vienna International Orchestra and the Taurida International Symphony Orchestra from Saint Petersburg. He has been invited to appear with various ensembles and artists at numerous festivals. Since the Elbphilharmonie opened, he has also performed there regularly.

Lilian Akopova
1st Prize Winner at the Vianna Da Motta International Piano Competition 2010, Lilian Akopova displays “ impressive virtuoso and pianistic capabilities” (Anne-Sophie Mutter).

Lilian Akopova received early instruction in music from the age of six with Valery Kozlov at the Kyiv Lysenko State Music Lyceum for Gifted Children, later graduating with highest honors at the age of 18. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, where, at the invitation of Elisso Virsaladze, she completed the master class with distinction.

During her studies she was invited to attend master classes with András Schiff and Paul Badura-Skoda. She is a scholarship holder of the Yehudi Menuhin “Live Music Now” Foundation, the Gulbenkian Foundation and the German Academic Exchange (DAAD). Lilian Akopova has taken part in numerous international piano competitions. In 2010 she won First Prize at the International Piano Competition “Vianna Da Motta” in Lisbon. She was also awarded First Prizes at the Carlet International Piano Competition in Valencia, the “Rome 2005” Competition, and the “Primo Premio Sulmona” in Italy.

Lilian Akopova has appeared in concert with the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra Klagenfurt, the Bolzano Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine under the baton of conductors such as Enrique García Asensio, Arthur Fagen and Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach. Numerous radio recordings testify to her musical artistry.

Booklet for Jazzissimo