Katharine Dain, Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir, Edward Janning
Biography Katharine Dain, Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir, Edward Janning
Katharine Dain
American-Dutch soprano Katharine Dain performs opera, chamber music, orchestral repertoire, and oratorio on international stages and is a probing curator and collaborator on many kinds of creative projects. Highlights of recent seasons include a debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Antony Hermus in the premiere of a commissioned work by Bram Kortekaas, Mozart Don Giovanni (Donna Anna) with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and the Armel Opera Festival, orchestral song cycles of Dutilleux, Saariaho, and Berlioz with ensembles including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Tapiola Sinfonietta, and songs of Berg and Zemlinsky arranged and conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. Dain’s recent album Regards sur l’Infini with pianist Sam Armstrong, featuring Messiaen Poèmes pour Mi and songs by Debussy, Delbos, Dutilleux, and Saariaho, won the 2021 Edison Klassiek for Best Debut and was widely praised in the press (“an extraordinarily polished and thought-through disc … glowing” —The Guardian). Her performance in the the Clermont-Ferrand International Competition, called a “revelation” by Diapason, led to her debut as Konstanze in Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the opera houses of Clermont-Ferrand, Avignon, Rouen, Massy, and Reims.
A passionate advocate for music of the 20th and 21st centuries, Dain first appeared with the Dutch National Opera in Claude Vivier Kopernikus and has since revisted the opera in North and South America. In the 2021-’22 season, she will be both singer and co-creator (with conductor Manoj Kamps, director Lisenka Heijboer Castañón, and Asko|Schönberg) on a new production for the DNO’s Opera Forward Festival. She works frequently with ensembles known for experimental and multidisciplinary projects, and she is often called for jump-ins of unusual concert repertoire, which has led to invitations at the Concertgebouw’s Zaterdagmatinee Kleine Zaal recital series, the Holland Festival, and the West Cork and Aldeburgh Festivals (among others) in works by Andriessen, Gubaidulina, Korngold, Marx, Nono, Orff, Ravel, Shostakovich, Tavener, and van de Putte.
Dain is equally at home in orchestral repertoire, oratorio, chamber music, and song. Some favorite past performances include Matthäus-Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Messiah in Carnegie Hall, Mozart Requiem with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Stravinsky Les Noces with the New York City Ballet, and Brahms Requiem with Cappella Amsterdam. A passionate promoter of chamber music and song, Dain has co-founded several ensembles, including Damask Vocal Quartet, whose 2018 album O schöne Nacht, featuring music of Brahms and his contemporaries, won France’s Choc de Classica award. She has performed with the Quiroga, Ragazze, Navarra, Van Brugh, Carducci, Callino, and Momenta string quartets and is a frequent guest on international chamber music festivals and series.
Dain holds degrees from Harvard University, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Mannes College of Music, and she currently lives in Rotterdam.
Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir
comes from Reykjavík, Iceland. Her musical education took her to the Juilliard School in New York and later to Germany. She was always drawn to playing chamber music and has been invited to many prestigious Festivals around the world. Ásdís has been a member of many wonderful ensembles; most notably as principal viola of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the violist of the Miami, Chilingirian and Utrecht string quartets. She has made numerous cd and radio recordings with these ensembles.
More recently she has made several cd’s for Zefir records. Her double cd with the title ‘The Voice of the Viola in times of oppression’ with the pianist Marcel Worms was chosen as cd of the year 2019 and given a 10 by the Dutch music magazine Luister. They include works by some less well known Jewish composers and some better known great masters such as Shostakovich, Weinberg and Mendelsohn. With her string trio, the Brunsvik String Trio, she recorded the complete String Trios of Beethoven for the composer’s 250th anniversary. Her most recent cd recording will come out in January 2022 and has the title ‘Stolen Schubert’. This CD has her transcriptions for viola of works by Schubert; the Arpeggione Sonata, Hirt Auf dem Felsen, Auf dem Stom and songs from the Winterreise. It is recorded with gut strings on the viola and an Erard piano from 1851, with the pianist Edward Janning and the soprano Katharine Dain.
Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir has previously been on the faculty of the Trinity College and the Royal College of Music in London and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She currently teaches viola and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory The Hague. Since 2015 she has been a member of the Association of Body Mapping Educators. Body Mapping is a method for preventing physical injuries in musicians that grew out of the Alexander Technique and is an integral part of her teaching. A new edition of her arrangement for viola of the Fantasias for Gamba by G.F. Telemann will be published by the French publisher Billaudot in 2022.
Edward Janning
performs regularly as a soloist and in ensembles. He gave concerts in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and in Russia. In ensembles he performed with baritone Henk Neven, the Ebony Band by Werner Herbers, the Mondrian Quartet, violinist Peter Brunt and viola player Vladimir Mendelssohn. He was a guest at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow several times, where he gave concerts with mainly contemporary repertoire.
Edward Janning likes to dedicate himself to Dutch music; he played for the radio, made CD recordings and played compositions by Julius Röntgen, Elisabeth Kuyper, Roderik the Man, Rudolf Escher, Ton Bruynel and Willem Pijper. He also gave premieres of compositions by Willem Jeths and Edward Top (his piano quintet). In January 2002 he gave a performance TIM / BA in music center Vredenburg, a work commissioned by Edward Janning for piano and four percussionists by composer Willem Jeths. This performance was broadcast live by the EBU and could be heard in most European countries. In October 2006 Edward gave a recital in Rome with new compositions by young Dutch and Italian composers.
Edward Janning has a passion for playing on historical instruments. With the Erard Ensemble he founded, Edward gives concerts in which he plays an Erard piano from the end of the nineteenth century, restored by Frits Janmaat. In December 2002 Edward gave a workshop / masterclass at the conservatory of Alkmaar about playing on historical keyboard instruments. Two CDs have been published by the Erard Ensemble with works by Joseph Jongen, Carl Krill, Gustav Mahler and Robert Schumann.
Since 2005, Edward Janning has organized an annual series of concerts with the Erard Ensemble in the historic Amstelkerk in Amsterdam, where both famous masterpieces and unknown repertoires from the 19th century are presented. Since 2009 Edward Janning has been the artistic director of the annual festival of the Erard Ensemble in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.
Edward Janning (1962) comes from Amsterdam, where he studied piano with Jet Röling and at the Sweelinck Conservatory with Willem Brons and Jan Wijn. After his final exams Performing Musician, he continued his studies at the Russian pianist Boris Berman at Yale University, School of Music at New Haven (USA). In addition to his concert practice, Edward is also active as a teacher; he has a private studio in Amsterdam and regularly gives workshops and masterclasses for pianists and chamber music ensembles. In April 2004 Edward organized and taught a chamber music week at the Hogeschool Inholland (conservatory) in Alkmaar.
