A special experience for the BEMUS audience will be the performance of the famous and much-loved pianist Aleksandar Madžar on November 10th at Kolarac as part of the 53rd BEMUS, with which he will begin his series of eight concerts dedicated to all of Beethoven's sonatas.
On Wednesday, the concert programme will include compositions by Beethoven – Piano Sonata, Op. 2 No. 1, 2 and 3; Diabelli Variations, Op. 120.
Aleksandar Madžar was born in Belgrade, where he began studying piano with Gordana Malinović. He studied in the classes of Arbo Valdma, Eliso Virsaladze and Daniel Blumenthal in Novi Sad, Belgrade, Moscow and Brussels. He won the competition in Geneva (1986) and in Bolzano (‘Ferruccio Busoni’, 1989), and won the third prize in Leeds (1996). On the occasion of winning the prize at the Leeds Piano Competition, the Times critic described Madžar as ‘the most imaginative musician among the finalists.’ After this success, his career skyrocketed, especially on the British music scene, where he performed as a highly sought-after soloist with the Royal Philharmonic, the BBC Orchestra of Wales, Scotland and Belfast, the BBC Philharmonic and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has given concerts throughout Europe and Asia under the direction of conductor Paavo Berglund, Iván Fischer, Paavo Järvi, Libor Pešek, André Previn, Andris Nelsons, Marcello Viotti...
He has also played as a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, the European Chamber Orchestra, the Cologne and Frankfurt Radio Orchestras, the Czech Philharmonic, the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Stuttgart Philharmonic. In chamber music, his partner is violinist Ilya Gringolz, as well as soprano Juliane Banse, with whom he performed in Bilbao, Valencia and Lisbon. Madžar's great Australian tour, performed in September 2017 with the extraordinary German-French cellist of the younger generation Nicolas Altstaedt at the ‘Musica Viva’ festival, was also very noticeable. It was a great continuation of the inspiring collaboration between the two artists that began in Sydney at the same event in 2015.
Aleksandar Madžar has given numerous recitals in Europe, America and Asia, including concerts in Berlin, Paris, London, Brussels, Florence, Amsterdam, Belgrade, The Hague, Milan, Hamburg, Prague and Boston. He has toured in Japan, China, the USA and Colombia, participated in numerous festivals, such as BEMUS and NOMUS, Ivo Pogorelić Festival, then festivals in Bad Kissingen, Schleswig-Holstein, Bad Verishofen, Verbier, Ruhr, Davos, Salzburg, Aldeburg, Lucerne. His performance at the 44th BEMUS in 2012 is still remembered, when he performed Bach’s six partitas. Aleksandar Madžar is engaged in pedagogical work at the Hochschule der Künste Bern and at the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Brussels.
The concert is being realized in cooperation with Kolarac Endowment.