Akiko Suwanai and Itamar Golan: Tanguy, Shostakovich, Bartók

The Louvre Auditorium hosts two of the greatest contemporary performers for a concert featuring pieces for piano and violin. Next to the French premiere of a new work composed by the contemporary composer Éric Tanguy (In A Dream), Akiko Suwanai and Itamar Golan perform Tsyganov's arrangement of ten preludes excerpt from Shostakovich's opus 34, the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 composed in 1921 by Béla Bartók and as an encore the Romanian Folk Dances, one of the most famous piece of the Hungarian composer.

Ever since her successes at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1990) and at the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition (1989), Akiko Suwanai has established herself as one of the leading violinists of her generation. The Times described her as "an imposing violinist of striking stage presence." Thanks to a loan from the Nippon Music Foundation, she currently plays the 1714 Dolphin Stradivarius, which was formerly played by Jascha Heifetz.

Akiko Suwanai shares here the Louvre Auditorium's stage with the Israeli pianist Itamar Golan. Several times laureate of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, Itamar Golan is an exceptional chamber musician who regularly plays next to Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Julian Rachlin, Mischa Maisky, Shlomo Mintz, Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel, Kyung Wha Chung, Sharon Kam or Matt Haimovitz. Itamar Golan currently teaches chamber music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris (France).

Musée du Louvre: Jean-Luc Martinez, President Director; Monique Devaux, Concerts Artistic Director.

Credits.

Pictures: Akiko Suwanai (© Kiyotaka Saito) & Itamar Golan (© Alvaro Yanez).