Liza Ferschtman
Renowned for her strong musical personality and the versatility of her musicianship, which combines powerful dynamism and intense lyricism, Liza Ferschtman has been praised in the international musical press, with The New York Times describing her as ‘nothing short of revelatory’, and referring to the ‘laserlike intensity, purity and refined beauty of her playing’, while The Guardian commended her ‘vivacious musical personality’ and ‘lovely lyrical quality’.
Since winning the Dutch Music Award, the most distinguished prize for Dutch musicians, in 2006, Liza has appeared as a soloist with many of the world’s top orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic and Brussels Philharmonic, collaborating with conductors including Jaap van Zweden, Iván Fischer, Stéphane Denève, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jun Märkl, Frans Brüggen, Neeme Järvi, Otto Tausk, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Thomas Søndergård. Liza Ferschtman is also a passionate chamber musician and a popular guest at festivals and concert venues throughout the world; since 2007 she has been artistic director of the Delft Chamber Music Festival. Her chamber music partners include Elisabeth Leonskaja, Jonathan Biss, Alisa Weilerstein, Christian Poltéra, Julius Drake, Martin Roscoe, Nobuko Imai, Lars Anders Tomter, Marie Luise Neunecker, Sharon Kam and Amihai Grosz.
The 2019-20 season includes concerto performances with the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Het Gelders Orkest and the Netherlands Philharmonic in Europe, while North and Central American performances include the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, the Toledo Symphony and Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco. The season also includes recital tours with Enrico Pace and performances of the Schubert piano trios with Elisabeth Leonskaja and István Várdai / Jakob Koranyi in venues including London’s Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein Wien, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
Liza Ferschtman has an impressive discography. Her CDs for Challenge Classics feature violin concertos by Beethoven, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Korngold and Bernstein (Serenade). She has also recorded chamber music on CD, including Mendelssohn’s Octet, works by Schubert and Beethoven performed with Inon Barnatan and the Kodaly, Ravel and Schulhoff duos performed with her father, the cellist Dmitri Ferschtman. Her most recent CD of the Bernstein Serenade and Korngold Concerto received wide critical acclaim, incliuding five stars in Fono Forum and ‘Album of the Month’ in die Welt. Her earlier CD of solo works by Bach and Ysaÿe was chosen as ‘CD of the Month’ by The Strad. The daughter of prominent Russian-Jewish musicians, Liza grew up in a musical environment and as a young child she was soon taking her first violin lessons from the legendary violinist and family friend, Philip Hirschhorn. After his death she studied with Herman Krebbers, Ida Kavafian at the celebrated Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and David Takeno in London. June 20