Fairy Tales by Ksenija Sidorova

Ksenija Sidorova

Fairy Tales

Format: CD
Label: Champs Hill
UPC: 5060212590572
Catnr: CHRCD 055
Release date: 29 January 2016
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Label
Champs Hill

UPC
5060212590572

Catalogue number
CHRCD 055

Release date
29 January 2016

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Accordion sensation Ksenija Sidorova demonstrates the full range and emotional power of her instrument. “As an accordionist you sort of have to carve your own path, so I consider it my mission in this way to introduce the instrument to a wider audience,” says Sidorova, who recently received the Latvian Grand Music Award 2012 “Outstanding Performance” prize.

Artist(s)

Ksenija Sidorova

Born in Latvia in 1988, Ksenija Sidorova was encouraged to take up the accordion by her grandmother, who has roots in the folk tradition of accordion playing. Ksenija started to play the instrument aged five in her home town of Riga, under the guidance of Marija Gasele. Wanting more exposure to both classical and contemporary repertoire and also more concert opportunities, her studies took her to London where she was a prize-winning undergraduate and subsequently received Masters Degree with Distinction at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with Professor Owen Murray. Outside the RAM her awards include a Philharmonia Orchestra Martin Musical Scholarship Fund Award and Philharmonia Orchestra Friends Award.
In February 2009 Ksenija was a joint winner of Friends of the Royal Academy of Music Wigmore Award, which led to her Wigmore Hall debut on May 18, 2009. The same year she was made a Recommended Artist under Making Music’s Philip & Dorothy Green Award scheme. Ksenija was selected to appear in Park Lane Group Young Artists New Year Series, 2009, and was described by The Times as ‘one of the real finds of the series’. She is a recipient of the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Silver Medal, Maisie Lewis Award and was the first accordionist to win the prestigious WCoM Prince’s Prize.
Ksenija is a winner of international competitions including a national talent competition in Latvia, the International Accordion Competition in Novosibirsk (Russia), St. Petersburg (Russia), Citta di Montese (Italy) and Siauliai (Lithuania). She has also worked with such composers as Stefano Gervasoni, Nirmali Fenn, Samantha Fernando, Carlos Duque, Elspeth Brooke and Patrick Nunn.

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Composer(s)

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions put the music of Norway in the international spectrum, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius and Antonín Dvořák did in Finland and Bohemia, respectively. Grieg is regarded as simultaneously nationalistic and cosmopolitan in his orientation, for although born in Bergen and buried there, he travelled widely throughout Europe, and considered his music to express both the beauty of Norwegian rural life and the culture of Europe as a whole. He is...

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions put the music of Norway in the international spectrum, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius and Antonín Dvořák did in Finland and Bohemia, respectively.
Grieg is regarded as simultaneously nationalistic and cosmopolitan in his orientation, for although born in Bergen and buried there, he travelled widely throughout Europe, and considered his music to express both the beauty of Norwegian rural life and the culture of Europe as a whole. He is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him.

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Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn is often compared to Mozart. Both of them were child prodigies, both had a talented sister and they both died at a young age. Mendelssohn, who as a child also painted wrote poetry, was born in small family which converted to christianity from judaism. As a composer he preferred looking back, rather than forward: his main examples were Bach, Handel and Mozart. It was Mendelssohn who retrieved Bach from oblivion and pushed for a revival of his music, which still lasts today. One century after its premier, Mendelsson performed the St Matthew Passion for the second...

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.

Mendelssohn is often compared to Mozart. Both of them were child prodigies, both had a talented sister and they both died at a young age. Mendelssohn, who as a child also painted wrote poetry, was born in small family which converted to christianity from judaism. As a composer he preferred looking back, rather than forward: his main examples were Bach, Handel and Mozart. It was Mendelssohn who retrieved Bach from oblivion and pushed for a revival of his music, which still lasts today. One century after its premier, Mendelsson performed the St Matthew Passion for the second time ever, in 1829.

Three years, earlier, on his 17th, he had already composed his masterfully overture A midsummer night's dream op. 21, based on Shakespeare's play. Today, it is still considered as one of the absolute masterpieces in all of the orchestra reperoire. His Violin Concerto op. 64 belongs to the most beautiful works of the 19th century as well. During his travels through Europe, he wrote his brilliant Italian Symphony, Scottish Symphony and the overture The Hebrides.

Although Mendelssohn had a prosperous career, his weak physique made him emotionally vulnerable. The death of his favourite sister Fanny became fatal: Mendelssohn died in the same year, at the age of 38.

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