Category Archives: People

Composer

Composer and soloist Kayhan Kalhor is one of the world’s most renowned masters of the Iranian stinged instrument, the Kamancheh. A composer of Kurdish and Persian classical music and globally renowned for his original works, his interpretations of traditional music, and his collaborations with other classical and modern musicians.

Kalhor was born into a Kurdish family of musicians in Tehran. He began his musical education at the age of seven and began playing in Iran’s National Orchestra at the age of 13. His career has spanned decades where he has studied traditional music of Iran and Tukey. Kalhor moved to Europe and then to Canada, where he studied composition in the European classical tradition. He received a degree from Carleton University and later immigrated to the United States.

Kalhor is a well-known member of the Persian/Kurdish folk and classical ensemble Ghazal and a founding member of the Yo-Yo Mas Silk Road Ensemble. He has played as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchester National de Lyon, as well as with the Indian sitar virtuoso Shujaat Husain Khan and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. As a composer, Kalhor has written for the outstanding Iranian singers Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri, as well as for the Silk Road Project. Several of his recordings have been nominated for a Grammy.

Oud Player

Kamil Shajrawi is now seen as one of the most important musicians in the Arab world, who specialises in classical oriental music. Born in Nazareth in 1962, he not only plays oud and violin, but in addition to his work as a singer, he is also regarded as a composer and arranger with his own distinctive style. Many of his compositions are written especially for the oud which emphasises the phrases of musical richness and manifest the technical abilities and virtuosity of the player. His compositions are greatly influenced by western classical and international music.

Born into a family well-known for its artistic talents, Kamil started his musical career at the age of five. At seven he started playing the oud and at the age of nine he won a scholarship to study classical violin for seven years at the conservatory where he graduated with excellence. After completing his high school studies, Kamil was awarded another scholarship to continue his musical studies in the United States of America. There he studied at CSULB in California where he received his B.A. degree as a classical violin performer.

He spent ten years in the U.S. touring and playing concerts of Middle Eastern music. Kamil has accompanied famous singers such as Wadie Al-Safi, Sayyed Makkawi and Lebanese star Fairuz. He took part in an international music concert with the well-known musician Paul Winter several times in the USA, South America and Israel.

Santurist

Ali Bahrami Fard was born in 1981 in Iran. He graduated in music (BA) from the University of Tehran and received a master’s in composition from the University of the Fine Arts in Tehran.

As a composer and soloist, he has worked with various ensembles, including the Kayhan Kalhor Ensemble, the Strad Kiev Symphony Orchestra, the Iranian National Orchestra, the Santurnavazan Ensemble and the Tehran Music Conservatory String Orchestra. His collaboration with Kayhan Kalhor I Will Not Stand Alone  is an improvisation in the style of Persian music and was released in 2012.

Bahrami-Fard currently teaches composition and Santur as a faculty member at the University of Shiraz.

Artistic Director

Markus Rindt is Artistic Director of the Dresdner Sinfoniker. He hails from a musical family – his mother was a choir singer, his father an orchestra musician. He received his first piano lessons at the age of six. After attending the Dresden Spezialschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber, he studied horn with Prof. Peter Damm in Dresden and with Prof. Erich Penzel in Cologne. His first engagement as a solo hornist led him to the Landesbühnen Sachsen. During this period, he was also deeply committed to other musical genres. In 1993 he founded the fusion band Marquis in Cologne as keyboarder and pianist, for which he also composed.

In 1996 Rindt founded the Dresdner Sinfoniker with musician and composer Sven Helbig. In the following years he shifted his focus more and more from active music making and composing to the organisation of the internationally acclaimed orchestra. As Spiritus Rector, Rindt has now been a driving force behind spectacular projects with which the orchestra often attracts worldwide attention for more than two decades. These include the Hochhaussinfonie, the First Remote Conducting of the World, the Concert at the End of Time, aghet – ağıt on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide or TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! on the border between Mexico and the USA. The desire to overcome borders – both physical and ideological – finds its origin in Rindt’s personal history: in October 1989 he fled the GDR via the German Embassy in Prague.

Rindt was awarded the Art Promotion Prize of the City of Dresden in 2000, the ‘Cultural Manager of the Year’ Award in 2008 and the ‘Dresdner of the Decade’ Award in 2010. In 2018 he was awarded the Erich Kästner Prize for “his multifaceted commitment against nationalism, fanaticism and isolation as well as his efforts for a better understanding between peoples”. Previous recipients of the prize include Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Marion Countess Dönhoff, Joachim Gauck and Richard von Weizsäcker.

rindt@dresdner-sinfoniker.de

Project Manager

Franziska Jahn, born in 1981, studied musicology and cultural management at the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Weimar from 2003 to 2009. Growing up in Munich, she came into contact with the independent cultural scene at an early age through her parents’ house: Her school years were marked by cello lessons at the Städtische Musikschule München, participation in various ensembles and youth orchestras as well as a continuous collaboration in the TamS (Theater am Sozialamt) in Schwabing. Her studies in Weimar gave her the opportunity to continue her involvement in many cultural projects, which confirmed her interest in cultural work.

After stays abroad in England, France and Belgium, Franziska now lives in Dresden with her husband and two children. Since 2009 she has been working alongside Markus Rindt for the Dresden Symphony Orchestra. In addition to the planning and acquisition of performance opportunities, she has already supervised many of the orchestra’s projects. In addition, she has been working as a captioning and video director at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden since 2007.

jahn@dresdner-sinfoniker.de

Percussionist

Maria Schneider was born in 1983 near Hanover. Her parents and two older sisters, like her, are classical drummers. After school in Garbsen, she attended the Berufsfachschule für Musik in Dinkelsbühl, followed by studies with Prof. Edgar Guggeis, Prof. Franz Schindlbeck, Prof. Rainer Seegers and Prof. Biao Li obtaining a degree in orchestral music at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

In the more than 20 years of her musical career she has performed and toured with the Bamberger Symphoniker, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Staatsoper Berlin, the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the State Opera Hannover, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart of the SWR and many more. She has also participated in various theatrical productions, including the Schaubühne in Berlin and the Maxim Gorki Theater. She also played for 6 years with the band Strom & Wasser (Heinz Ratz) and was a singer in the band Livegespräch.

She currently plays with Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, an 18-member ensemble of classical and jazz musicians under the direction of Daniel Glatzel, Per Anders and Ambrassador. Maria Schneider lives in Berlin.

Bassist

Tom Götze, born in Dresden in 1968, studied tuba, bass guitar and double bass at the conservatory in Dresden from 1984 to 1990. Since studying in the USA in 1992/93 (New York and Los Angeles) he has worked as a musician in the styles of jazz, rock, pop and classical. He has worked with many different artists including Mike Stern, Pet Shop Boys, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Günther Fischer, Adam Rogers, Richie Beirach, Arkady Shilkloper, Gitte Haenning, Manfred Krug, Volker Schlott, Uschi Brüning, Jiggs Wigham, Pascal von Wroblewsky, Andreas Gundlach, Christian Röver, Günther “Baby” Summer and Günter Hörig.

Since 1989 Tom Götze has been playing with the Dresden cult band Dekadance.He is a founding member of the Dresdner Sinfoniker and regularly performs as a soloist in their projects. In addition, the busy musician works at the Theater der Jungen Generation and the Staatsschauspiel in Dresden and can be enjoyed as soloist or ensemble member in about 200 concerts and performances annually. Guest performances and tours have taken him to Canada, Scandinavia, England, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Cuba, Austria, Russia, China, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. From 2000 to 2006 he taught double bass and bass guitar at the University of Music and Performing Arts Leipzig, and now teaches at the Hochschule für Musik “Carl-Maria-von-Weber” in Dresden since 2006. In 2012 he was appointed an honorary professor.

www.tomgoetze.de

Violinist

Iva Bittová was born in 1958 in Bruntál in northern Moravia in what was then Czechoslovakia. Both of her parents were musicians. Her mother Ludmila was a pre-school teacher; her father Koloman Bitto (Bittová is the feminine form of the surname) was a musician strongly influenced by the land of his birth – southern Slovakia. He predominantly playeddouble bass, cymbal, guitar, and trumpet. This exceptional ability to play almost any instrument, whether classical or folk, proved a major influence on his three daughters. Both of Iva’s sisters are professional theatre performers and musicians.

Iva attended drama school, specialising in violin and ballet, after which she graduated in drama and music at the Conservatory of Music in Brno.

Around this time she also featured as an actress in radio, TV and movie productions. While working full time in theatre, she re-kindled her interest in playing violin. After her father’s death, she decided to follow in his professional footsteps as an instrumentalist and composer.

In 1982, Iva studied with Professor Rudolf Šťastný, the first violinist of the Moravian String Quartet. In the intervening years the violin has become her life’s passion and the most inspiring musical instrument in her professional life.

After living in the countryside near Brno for 17 years, Iva relocated to the United States. Iva shares her Hudson Valley home with her younger son Antonín (born 1991) – also a dedicated musician and chip off the Bitto block.