The GOLDBERG VARIATIONS with CRAIG OGDEN (guitar)

A sensitive and stunning new transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, written for star guitarist, Craig Ogden, who is joined by David Juritz (violin/arranger) and Tim Hugh (cello), for our inaugural Chamber Weekend concert.

“… a surprising and beautifully executed rendition of the work by violinist David Juritz … detailed and gracious, but also sweeping and noble, and full of “air” and warmth.” ENDNOTES, Oct 2019

Described by BBC Music Magazine as ‘a worthy successor to Julian Bream’, the Australian-born guitarist Craig Ogden is one of the most exciting artists of his generation. He studied guitar from the age of seven and percussion from the age of thirteen. In 2004, he became the youngest instrumentalist to receive a Fellowship Award from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. One of the UK’s most recorded guitarists, his recordings for Virgin/EMI, Chandos, Nimbus, Hyperion, Sony and Classic FM have received wide acclaim. Craig Ogden plays a 2011 Greg Smallman guitar and strings made by D’Addario.

David Juritz was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and began playing the violin at the age of five. He was awarded an Associated Board Scholarship to the Royal College of Music where he won the RCM’s top award, the Tagore Gold Medal. On leaving the RCM, he joined English Chamber Orchestra before being appointed leader of the London Mozart Players, a position he held until 2010. He made many appearances as soloist and director with the LMP, including his debut at the 2006 BBC Proms. David peforms regularly as a chamber music artist and is also a prolific arranger, including music by Couperin and Debussy for the London Tango Trio and most recently, his arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, written for guitarist, Craig Ogden. David plays on a violin made by J.B. Guadagnini in Piacenza in 1748.

After winning two medals, including the Bach Prize, at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Tim Hugh has appeared with many of Europe’s leading orchestras and worked with conductors including Boulez, Gergiev, Haitink, Rostropovich, Menuhin, Pappano, Previn, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Colin Davis and Sir Andrew Davis. He has toured extensively and also appeared in the Aldeburgh Festival and the BBC Proms. After a year at Yale, he gained his MA at Cambridge reading Medicine and Anthropology. Throughout this period, he continued his cello studies with William Pleeth and Jacqueline du Pré.  In 1995 he was appointed Principal Cellist of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), with whom he immediately appeared as soloist with Pierre Boulez, standing in for Rostropovich. In 2018 Tim took up the position of joint Principal Cello at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Sponsored by Nigel O’Mara