Concert 3 June 2016, Holywell Music Room, Oxford

JUNE

03

ICSM Records - The Artists Live, UK Tour Fiammetta Tarli & Ivo Varbanov Holywell Music Room, Oxford Friday 3rd of June 2016, 7:30 pm

Johannes Brahms, Love Songs Waltzes for piano four hands, Op. 52 Johannes Brahms, New Love Songs Waltzes for piano four hands, Op. 65a interval Igor Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Reduction for Piano Duet

Tickets £12* (£8) Bookings: www.oxfordplayhouse.com/ ticketsoxford/ Box Office: 01865 305 305

Holywell Music Room Holywell Street Oxford, OX1 3BN *Early bird: 50 free CDs from ICSM Records catalogue

Husband and wife Ivo Varbanov and Fiammetta Tarli are both experienced concert pianists and musicians with a passion for unconventional music production of the highest quality. When in 2013 they joined forces and started performing as piano duo, a chemistry of musical personalities was immediately evident beyond their bond as husband and wife. Their encounter at the house of Ilona Deckers in Milan, an eminent Hungarian teacher, explains their refined central European sound culture; yet in many aspects they seem to complement each other in rich textures of a never-ending dialogue. Despite their success as a duo, they have not ceased their performing activity as soloists and in various other chamber music formations.

In 2014, their decision to start an independent audiophile record label, ICSM Records (Independent Creative Sound and Music Records) was due to their growing exigency to “have artistic and financial control over our recordings” (Interview with Norman Lebrecht, August 2014), as well as a search for “uncompromising quality in every aspect of the recording, creating artistic statements beyond time and fashion”. Over the next period, their first recordings on the international scene were met with critical acclaim.

Ivo and Fiamma’s “slow music” credo, inspired by the “slow food” movement, aims at reproducing “the realism of the concert experience as close as possible”. ‘Slow music’ does not mean a preference for slow pieces, they explain, but the fact that “music, as every art form, needs time to develop and show its inner qualities from all sides”, performers as well as audience.

Fiammetta Tarli plays regularly in Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, both as a soloist and in different chamber music groups, with pianist Iain Ledingham, violinists Yana Burova and Ofer Falk (Allegri Quartet), also her husband Ivo Varbanov (two pianos four hands). Highlights of her recent engagements include multiple performances at Cadogan Hall, London, and in various prestigious series such as 'Brahms Unwrapped' at the Kings Place (London), 'Conciertos Temáticos' in Santander, and the Sofia Music Weeks, the main festival in Bulgaria. Her concerts have been broadcast by Italian RAI, and Slovak, Bulgarian and Spanish National Radios.

Together with Ivo Varbanov she recently founded Independent Creative Sound and Music (ICSM) Records, a new audiophile record label.

Fiammetta's first two recordings of piano works by Schumann were published by Gega New (Bulgaria) in 2007 and 2013. Her first two recordings for ICSM Records (ICSM 001 with Ivo, and ICSM 003 solo programme) were released in May 2014 with a launch of the label at the Kings Place, London, and received wide acclaim by the international press (International Record Review, Rivista Musica, Fanfare, Observer, Klassisk Musikkmagasin, HI-FI+). Légendes anciennes (ICSM 006, again with Ivo) was published in the Autumn-Winter 2015, and two more recordings are in course of publication: a two-piano programme (ICSM 010), and a twentieth-century programme with the Italian flutist Daniela Troiani (ICSM 012).

Her recording projects in 2016 will include another two-piano programme with the world première of a piece especially composed for the duo Tarli-Varbanov by the Argentinian composer Silvina Milstein (King's College London), and a solo recording featuring piano compositions by Ravel and Martin Georgiev (world première recording). Her next engagements include concerts in the United Kingdom, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Ivo Varbanov is a leading figure of Bulgarian music and culture abroad. He is a recipient of the Ivan Vazov Award for the popularisation of Bulgarian Culture abroad, and in 2011 he was also awarded the Silver Lion Award from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His performances have been broadcast on Bulgarian National Radio, BBC Radio, RAI 3, Classic FM+, Spanish National Radio, Slovak National Radio, Bulgarian National TV, BTV, and TV Bulgaria. In 2014 with his wife Fiammetta Tarli, Ivo started an independent audiophile record label, ICSM Records (Independent Creative Sound and Music Records).

Ivo has currently eleven commercial recordings for Gega New, ICSM Records, and Toccata Classics, including the première recording of Dimitar Nenov Piano Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Maestro Emil Tabakov (January 2016).

His performances include concertos, recitals and chamber music in Bulgaria, Italy, the UK, France, Spain, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany, Holland, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and the USA. Career highlights include multiple performances at the South Bank Centre, Wigmore Hall, King’s Place, Cadogan Hall and St. John’s Smith Square in London, Carnegie Recital Hall in New York, Bulgaria Concert Hall in Sofia, and Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg.

After a forced stop from performing from 2009 to 2012 due to Leukaemia he has returned to the stage with impressive performances at Royal Festival Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, King’s Place, and Cadogan Hall. In the last two seasons he has been partnering in chamber music concerts with his wife Fiammetta Tarli and Konstantin Lifschitz (two pianos/four hands), as well as with the cello players Làszlò Fenyö and Jozef Luptak, and the Allegri Quartet. During the last two seasons, Ivo has performances in England, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

A dizzying experience. ★★★★ — Stephen Pritchard, The Observer (UK)

An absolute delight to hear.

— Jerry Dubins, Fanfare (USA)

Here you have an hour of sheer delight. ★★★★★ — Klassisk Musikkmagasin (Norway)

This is how piano music should be recorded.

10/10 — Hi-Fi + (UK)

It is a splendid IRR debut from the new ICSM label.

— International Record Review (UK)

The recording quality is exceptional… – a lovely disc.

— The Arts Desk (Web)

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ICSM Records - The Artists Live, UK Tour Fiammetta Tarli & Ivo Varbanov Monday 30 May 2016, 7.30pm St Ann’s Church, Manchester

Thursday 2 June 2016, 7.30pm Royal Concert Hall, New Auditorium, Glasgow

Friday 3 June 2016, 7.30pm Holywell Music Room, Oxford

T O U R

Wednesday 8 June 2016, 7.30pm Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester-on-Thames

Friday 10th June 2016, 7.30pm St John’s Smith Square, London

Saturday 11 June 2016, 7.30pm West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Wednesday 15 June 2016, 7.30pm St George’s, Bristol Sunday 26 June 2016, 7.30pm Wye Valley Music Festival

For details: info@icsmrecords.com