Mūza Rubackīte (klavieres) un Dmitrijs Mahtins (vijole)

Wednesday, 2024 July 10th, 7.00 pm
House of Black Heads
 
MUZA RUBACKYTE (piano, France-Lithuania) and DMITRY MAKHTIN (violin)
 
Programme: "Belle epoque"
 
A native of Lithuania, MÛZA RUBACKYTÉ (Moo-za Ru-but-skee-té) was born into a family of musicians. At the age of 7, she remarkably made her professional debut in Vilnius playing Haydn's D major concerto with the Lithuanian National Chamber Orchestra. Six years later at 13, she won First Prize in the country's National Young Artists Competition allowing her admittance to the renowned Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory where she studied with the likes of celebrated pianists/teachers Bela Davidovitch, Yakov Flier and Michail Voskressensky. During this period, she won First Prize in the Tallinn (Estonia) Piano Competition and shortly thereafter was awarded the Conservatory's First Prize in three disciplines: solo piano, chamber music and accompaniment.

As born to the piano, she continued garnering awards by winning the first of her three major international competitions such as the highly regarded "ALL-UNION" (Vsesoyuzniy) in St. Petersburg which named her, at the time, one of the best pianists in the Soviet Union. During those restricted years in the now defunct Soviet Union, Mûza and other artists were told where, when and what to perform.

She traveled to every corner of the land appearing with the orchestras of the Baltic countries, Ukraine, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus to the great ensembles of Moscow, Vilnius and St. Petersburg. There were "special" orchestral tours and recitals outside the Soviet Union to Cairo, Egypt, Prague, Czechoslovakia and Budapest, Hungary, performing with such maestri as Khatchaturian, Jarvi, Gergiev, Kogan, Kachidze, Jordania and Klas. The "ordered" recital tours throughout the republics were played on a variety of pianos from untuned, poorly conditioned uprights in the small hamlets and villages to the standard nine-foot concert grands in the cities.

The positive side to this "restricted musical life" allowed her to build over 30 different recital programs and remarkably learn, perform and polish 35 major concerti for piano and orchestra which included most of the Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Chopin concertos plus those of Mendelssohn, Stenhammar, Montvila, and Dvarionas and Schnittke. The concerti and recital repertoire continue to be actively performed and grow.

As a loyal, proud and honored citizen of Lithuania during those occupied years, she was, fortunately, granted permission by the Soviet musical authorities to enter the Budapest International Piano Competition ,also known as Liszt/Bartok and won the Grand-Prix to wide acclaim. Unfortunately, due to ethnic politics of the day and geography, she was constantly denied visas to perform in the West after all her accomplishments. But with the arrival of "perestroika" (1989) and finally, Lithuanian independence (1991), circumstances motivated and allowed her to make the move to the major music capital of Paris, France. There, she immediately entered the prestigious Paris International Piano Competition and won its First-Prize overwhelmingly. Originally, known as "Triptyque", it was formed by the three great French composers Ravel, Dukas and Roussel. Eventually, the competition's title evolved into "Les Grand Maitres Francais" (The Grand Masters of France) of which Ms. RUBACKYTÉ is now recognized as a "Grand Master" in that country.

As Paris now remains her musical home, Mûza appears regularly throughout France with the orchestras of Toulouse, Bretagne, Paris, Auvergne, Daouai, Lorraine as well as in Switzerland (Basil and Geneva). Heard frequently on Radio-France, Radio-Classique and Radio Notre-Dame and proficient in five languages, she is comfortable during her continental tours at such concert venues as Wigmore Hall (London), Beethoven House (Bonn), Salle Gaveau (Paris), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) and others. Following her hugely successful debut at the world-renowned Concertgebouw she made the cover of the international piano magazine "Piano World" in Holland.

In recent years, she has been invited to North America for recitals at the Newport (RI), Portland (OR), Houston (TX) Music Festivals and the Commonwealth of Bermuda for their Festival. The Bermuda press headlined her review as "Passion, fire and thunder from a musical magician."

The 2000-2001 concert season returns her to South America for a third time in appearances with the National Philharmonic of Chile and then to North America for her American orchestral debut(s) with the Nashville (TN), North Carolina and Canton (OH) symphonies under the batons of two prominent maestri Kenneth Schermerhorn (Nashville) and Gerhardt Zimmermann (North Carolina and Canton).

In 1998, Lithuania honored Ms. Rubackyté and the late legendary Sir Yehudi Menuhin with the country's highest cultural award the "Legion of Merit" for their extraordinary international musical accomplishments.

Besides her active concert career, Ms. Rubackyté is a postgraduate professor at the Lithuanian National Academy of Music and serves as a Jurist throughout many of Europe's piano competitions.

She is heard on eight highly praised and acclaimed recordings for Lyrinx, Marco Polo, Melodia and Hungaroton in the works of Liszt, Schubert, Brahms, Ciurlionis and others. Fanfare Magazine in reviewing her recent CD (Lyrinx) titled "Les Etudes de Liszt" wrote ....... SHE IS SIMPLY ONE OF THE GREATEST LISZT PLAYERS ALIVE". A tremendous achievement for one whom through drive, discipline, natural talent and true love for the piano overcame all the personal and political obstacles thrown in her way.

Mûza Rubackyté is a true and brilliant artist in every sense of what the word "artist" represents to the world of great music.
 
Born in St Petersburg in 1975, Dmitri Makhtin started his musical education at the age of 4 with his parents, both professional violinists at the St Peterburg Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1981 he entered the Conservatory for highly talented children. In 1989 he won the prize of the National Competition for Young Violinists in Novossibirsk, Russia
 
In 1990, he obtained a scholarship from the Young Musicians’ Foundation in the USA and gave his first recitals in New-York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas.
 
From 1992 to 1995 he continued his musical education with professors P.Hirshborn and H.Krebbers. He won the following international competitions : Kloster Schontal violin competition, Premio Paganini and Louis Spohr, Tibor Varga, Montréal, Sibelius and Pretoria.
 
Dmitri Makhtin made his French debut in Paris in 1997 with Maestro Svetlanov and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, then, his American debut in 1998, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Maestro Slatkin. From then on, he appeared with orchestras such as : Het Residentie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, St Petersburg Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Radio and TV Orchestras, Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, Montpellier National Orchestra, New Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Solistes Européens du Luxembourg and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
 
He performed with conductors such as Evgeny Svetlanov, Leonard Slatkin, James de Priest, Sakari Oramo, Jiri Belohlavek, Alexander Dmitriev, Jerzy Semkow, Yuri Temirkanov, Nikolaï Alexeev, Jean-Claude Casadesus.
 
An active chamber music player, he has performed in prestigious festivals such as the Arts Square in St Petersburg, Lisbonne, Folles Journées de Nantes, Roque d’Anthéron , Musique en Côte Basque, Salzburg and Festival de Saint-Denis.
 
The Trio Boris Berezovsky, Dmitri Makhtin, Alexander Kniazev, recorded a DVD of Tchaïkovsky’s Pieces for piano, violin and cello and Trio Elégiaque “A La mémoire d’un grand artiste” presented on ARTE TV Channel and NHK in Japan. They received for this DVD the 4-star Diapason award.
 
The CD (Warner Classics International) with B.Berezovsky and A.Kniazev, Chostakovitch’s Trio n°2 and Rachmaninov’s Trio Elégiaque n°2 received several highest awards like the Choc de la Musique in France, Gramophone in England, Echo Classic in Germany.
 
A Mendelssohn trios with A.Kniazev and B.Berezovsky were released and received the « Echo » award.
 
His last disc recorded for Lontano is a selection of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas.
 
In 2011, Dmitri Makhtin was invited for a tour with the Orchestre National de Lille and Maestro Casadesus for the 25th anniversary of the orchestra, concerts at the Folle Journée de Nantes, and the Folle Journée Tokyo… He was also invited by Vadim Repin to play at his Carte Blanche.
 
His forthcoming projects include concerts at Folles Journées de Nantes, Tokyo, in Anvers with Andrei Korobeinikov, Moments Musicaux de La Baule with Boris Berezovsky, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Orchestra with Jaap van Sweden.