Daniel Hope & Alexey Botvinov
Biography Daniel Hope & Alexey Botvinov
Daniel Hope
British violinist Daniel Hope has toured the world as a virtuoso soloist for more than twenty years, and as the youngest ever member of the Beaux Arts Trio during its last six seasons. He is renowned for his musical versatility and creativity and for his dedication to humanitarian causes. Hope performs as soloist with the world’s major orchestras and conductors, directs many ensembles from the violin, and plays chamber music in a wide variety of traditional and new venues. Raised in London and educated at Highgate School, Hope earned degrees at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with renowned Russian pedagogue Zakhar Bron.
London’s Observer called Hope “the most exciting British string player since Jacqueline du Pré,” and recent New York Times reviews summarized his unique attributes: “... a violinist of probing intellect and commanding style... In a business that likes tidy boxes drawn around its commodities, the British violinist Daniel Hope resists categorization.’
Daniel Hope, an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, has earned numerous Grammy nominations, a Classical BRIT award, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and five ECHO Klassik Prizes. He previously recorded for Warner Classics and Nimbus, playing Bach, Britten, Elgar, Finzi, Foulds, Ireland, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Penderecki, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Tippett, Walton, and Weill. His recording of the Berg Violin Concerto was voted to be the “best available of all time” by Gramophone Magazine in 2010. His Mendelssohn CD for Deutsche Grammophon featuring the Violin Concerto and Octet was voted one of the finest Mendelssohn recordings by the New York Times in 2009. His recent release for Deutsche Grammophon was a tribute to the great and highly influential violinist and composer Joseph Joachim (1831- 1907) and centred around the Bruch concerto, a work with which Joachim was closely associated. The Bruch was recorded with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. "Four Seasons Recomposed" – the newest release in DG’s “Recomposed” series presents Daniel Hope with the Berlin Konzerthaus Chamber Orchestra, conducted by André de Ridder, in a world première recording of British composer Max Richter’s." Spheres" – which is Hope’s own project, due out in early 2013 – is a curated collection of repertoire celebrating the idea, first brought forward by Pythagoras, that planetary movement creates its own kind of music. This idea has fascinated philosophers, musicians, and mathematicians for centuries. The CD’s program includes music in a variety of styles, from Baroque to minimalist, by Bach, Faure, contemporary masters like Arvo Pärt and Michael Nyman, and younger composers who have specially composed new works for Hope, based on the idea of spherical music. These include Gabriel Prokofiev, Ludovico Einaudi, Alex Baranowski and Aleksey Igudesmann. Hope is joined by the Berlin Rundfunk-choir under the direction of Simon Halsey on this disc.
Hope regularly directs chamber orchestras as violin soloist with ensembles including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Camerata Salzburg, and Lucerne Festival Strings. He has performed at the world’s most important festivals, such as the BBC Proms, Hollywood Bowl and the Lucerne, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Tanglewood festivals. Daniel Hope has performed in all of the world’s most prestigious venues and with the world’s great orchestras. Highlights include the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, as well as the major orchestras of Berlin, Birmingham, Dallas, Detroit, Dresden, Israel, London, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm, and Vienna. He is Associate Music Director of the Savannah Music Festival and Artistic Director at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Summer Festival in Germany. He has also published three bestselling books.
Daniel Hope plays the 1742 “ex-Lipiński” Guarneri del Gesù, placed generously at his disposal by an anonymous family from Germany. The instrument carries the name of its owner, the 19th century Polish violinist Karol Lipiński, who shared the stage with Paganini, Schumann and Liszt.
