David Starobin is the dedicatee of more than 350 new works which he has performed throughout the world, collaborating with ensembles including the New York Philharmonic; the National, Houston, San Francisco, Saint Louis, and BBC symphony orchestras; the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; the Danish Radio Orchestra; the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; and the Emerson and Guarneri quartets.
Mr. Starobin began his guitar studies at age seven with the guitarist Manuel Gayol, later graduating from the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Aaron Shearer. While a student at Peabody, Mr. Starobin worked closely with pianist Leon Fleisher and was a frequent participant in the Marlboro Music Festival.
Among David Starobin’s honors are a Harvard University Fromm Grant for his commitment to the music of our time; Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant; ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award, and Peabody Conservatory’s Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2011 Starobin became the youngest guitarist to be inducted into the Guitar Foundation of America’s Hall of Fame. In 1981 David Starobin founded Bridge Records, Inc. His work for Bridge as performer, producer, and executive producer has earned three Grammy awards and thirty-six Grammy nominations, including “Classical Producer of the Year” (2015).
Between 1993 and 2004, David Starobin was the chairman of the guitar department at the Manhattan School of Music. In addition to teaching at MSM, Mr. Starobin holds the “Fondation Charidu Chair in Guitar Studies” at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he co-founded Curtis’s guitar program in 2011.
Poul Ruders (b. 1949) is one of the era’s most highly regarded composers for both the opera stage and the symphonic concert hall. His operas have been staged in Copenhagen, New York City, London, Toronto and Munich, and his orchestral music commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Ruders lives a spartan life in the countryside of Denmark. The isolation has afforded him the opportunity to produce a deep and highly varied catalog which includes five operas, 45 symphonic works and concertos, and dozens of chamber and solo pieces. The music of Poul Ruders has been well-documented by the record labels DaCapo (Denmark) and Bridge (USA), and is published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Copenhagen.
In 2019, Poul Ruders will celebrate his 70th birthday with the world premiere of his newest opera, The Thirteenth Child, staged by the Santa Fe Opera. Prior to the premiere, Bridge Records will release a studio recording of the two act ‘fairytale’ opera. Also on tap in 2018/2019 are new productions in the USA and Europe of Ruders’s best known opera, The Handmaid’s Tale after the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood.
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