Mark Fewer & John Novacek, violin/piano
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Vancouver Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Mark Fewer is widely considered one of the most unique and creative musical voices of his generation. Comfortable in a variety of roles, he is known for his honest approach and relaxed style, switching easily from duties as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader, jazz musician, and artistic programmer.
Born in Newfoundland, Fewer was recognized from an early age to possess the stage presence of his father, a famous local singer and entertainer in the 1950s and 60s. After studies in piano, violin, and saxophone in his native St. John's, he furthered his studies in Toronto at age 15 with the noted violin pedagogue David Zafer. Further studies included private tuition with Jose-Luis Garcia in London, England and with Ferenc Rados in Budapest, Hungary.
As a soloist, Fewer has performed with many of the major orchestras across Canada as well as orchestras in the United States, and in recital throughout Europe. His repertoire ranges from Vivaldi's Four Seasons to concertos of Prokofiev and Shostakovich and beyond. In the fall of 2005, he gave the Canadian premiere of John Adams's The Dharma at Big Sur for six-string electric violin and orchestra with the Vancouver Symphony.
Many new works have been written and/or dedicated to him, including James Rolfe's Worry for violin and eight cellos (recently released on the Eclectra record label in 2005), Michael Oesterle's Green for violin and Indonesian Gamelan, and Phil Dwyer's Happy Birthday Variations for violin alone. In the spring of 2007, he will premiere a new work for six-string electric violin and brass ensemble by Bramwell Tovey.
As a chamber musician, he is a founding member of the Duke Piano Trio and violinist with Canada's SuperNova String Quartet. In 2006, the Dukes performed the complete Beethoven Piano Trio Cycle in London, and the SuperNovas completed the cycle of late Beethoven String Quartets. Outside of these ensembles, he is a regular contributor to chamber music societies and festivals around North America.
After years immersed in the musical life of Toronto, Fewer moved west in the fall of 2004 to begin duties as concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony. Inside this role he periodically performs as soloist/director in concerts at Vancouver's Chan Centre. The current season will see performances of the complete Brandenburg Concertos of J.S. Bach, the first time in the orchestra's history they will be performed without conductor.
As artistic director of the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax and SweetWater Music Weekend in Owen Sound, he has gained a reputation of daring to program works that others would not. "...With sold out houses and standing ovations after virtually every piece, he clearly knows what he is doing..." (Keith Horner, CBC Radio Two). He is also the director of LotusLand, a successful hybrid show of 20th century classical music and jazz, putting works of John Adams, George Antheil, Charlie Chaplin, Cyrill Scott, and Paul Schoenfield alongside works of Stuff Smith, Cab Calloway, and Phil Dwyer. LotusLand continues to expand, with new works being written by jazz musicians and classical composers across the continent.
Fewer taught violin and chamber music at the Glenn Gould School between 1997 and 2004. During that time he gained an enviable reputation as a teacher and mentor. Though he currently does not teach during the regular season, he serves on the faculty of the Domaine Forget and The Banff Centre in the summer. As well, he is co-developer of a new improvising course (along with jazz great Brad Turner) specifically for advanced chamber music students.
Pianist John Novacek regularly tours the Americas, Europe and Asia as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist; in the latter capacity he has presented over thirty concerti with dozens of orchestras.
John Novacek’s major American performances have been heard in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, 92nd Street Y, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Symphony Space, Washington’s The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Hollywood Bowl and Royce Hall, while international venues include Paris’ Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Salle Gaveau and Musée du Louvre, London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre, as well as most of the major concert halls of Japan. He is also a frequent guest artist at festivals, here and abroad, including New York City’s Mostly Mozart Festival and those of Aspen, Cape Cod, Caramoor, Chautauqua, Colorado College, Ravinia, Seattle, SummerFest La Jolla, Wolf Trap, BBC Proms (England), Braunschweig (Germany), Lucerne, Menuhin and Berbier (Switzerland), Majorca (Spain), Sorrento (Italy), Stavanger (Norway), Toulouse (France) and Sapporo (Japan).
Often heard on radio broadcasts worldwide, John Novacek has appeared on NPR’s Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and, as both featured guest composer/performer, on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. He is also frequently seen and heard on television, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Entertainment Tonight and CNN International.
John Novacek is a much sought-after collaborative artist and has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Emmanuel Pahud, Truls Mork and Leila Josefowicz, as well as the Colorado, Harrington, New Hollywood and Ying string quartets. He has also given numerous world premieres and worked closely with composers John Adams, John Harbison, Jennifer Higdon, George Rochberg, John Williams and John Zorn.
John Novacek took top prizes at both the Leschetizky and Joanna Hodges international piano competitions, among many others. He studied piano with Peter Serkin, Bruce Sutherland and Jakob Gimpel and chamber music with Jamie Laredo and Felix Galimir, and occasionally coached with Gary Graffman and Isaac Stern.
John Novacek’s own compositions and arrangements have been performed by the Pacific Symphony, The 5 Browns, Concertante, Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo, Harrington String Quartet, Ying Quartet, Millennium, Quattro Mani and The Three Tenors. He has recorded over 30 CDs, encompassing solo and chamber music by most major composers from Bach to Bartók, as well as many contemporary and original scores. Mr. Novacek records for Philips, Nonesuch, Arabesque, Warner Classics, Sony/BMG, Koch International, Universal Classics, Ambassador, Pony Canyon, Four Winds, Arkay, Virtuoso and EMI Classics. CD titles include Road Movies (2004 GRAMMY nomination as “Best Chamber Music Performance”), Great Mozart Piano Works, Spanish Rhapsody, Novarags (original ragtime compositions), Classic Romance, Hungarian Sketches, Intersection, Romances et Meditations and, with Leila Josefowicz, Americana (GRAMOPHONE: “Editor’s Choice”), For the End of Time, Shostakovich and Recital (BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE: 5 stars/June 2005's chamber choice).
Born in Newfoundland, Fewer was recognized from an early age to possess the stage presence of his father, a famous local singer and entertainer in the 1950s and 60s. After studies in piano, violin, and saxophone in his native St. John's, he furthered his studies in Toronto at age 15 with the noted violin pedagogue David Zafer. Further studies included private tuition with Jose-Luis Garcia in London, England and with Ferenc Rados in Budapest, Hungary.
As a soloist, Fewer has performed with many of the major orchestras across Canada as well as orchestras in the United States, and in recital throughout Europe. His repertoire ranges from Vivaldi's Four Seasons to concertos of Prokofiev and Shostakovich and beyond. In the fall of 2005, he gave the Canadian premiere of John Adams's The Dharma at Big Sur for six-string electric violin and orchestra with the Vancouver Symphony.
Many new works have been written and/or dedicated to him, including James Rolfe's Worry for violin and eight cellos (recently released on the Eclectra record label in 2005), Michael Oesterle's Green for violin and Indonesian Gamelan, and Phil Dwyer's Happy Birthday Variations for violin alone. In the spring of 2007, he will premiere a new work for six-string electric violin and brass ensemble by Bramwell Tovey.
As a chamber musician, he is a founding member of the Duke Piano Trio and violinist with Canada's SuperNova String Quartet. In 2006, the Dukes performed the complete Beethoven Piano Trio Cycle in London, and the SuperNovas completed the cycle of late Beethoven String Quartets. Outside of these ensembles, he is a regular contributor to chamber music societies and festivals around North America.
After years immersed in the musical life of Toronto, Fewer moved west in the fall of 2004 to begin duties as concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony. Inside this role he periodically performs as soloist/director in concerts at Vancouver's Chan Centre. The current season will see performances of the complete Brandenburg Concertos of J.S. Bach, the first time in the orchestra's history they will be performed without conductor.
As artistic director of the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax and SweetWater Music Weekend in Owen Sound, he has gained a reputation of daring to program works that others would not. "...With sold out houses and standing ovations after virtually every piece, he clearly knows what he is doing..." (Keith Horner, CBC Radio Two). He is also the director of LotusLand, a successful hybrid show of 20th century classical music and jazz, putting works of John Adams, George Antheil, Charlie Chaplin, Cyrill Scott, and Paul Schoenfield alongside works of Stuff Smith, Cab Calloway, and Phil Dwyer. LotusLand continues to expand, with new works being written by jazz musicians and classical composers across the continent.
Fewer taught violin and chamber music at the Glenn Gould School between 1997 and 2004. During that time he gained an enviable reputation as a teacher and mentor. Though he currently does not teach during the regular season, he serves on the faculty of the Domaine Forget and The Banff Centre in the summer. As well, he is co-developer of a new improvising course (along with jazz great Brad Turner) specifically for advanced chamber music students.
Pianist John Novacek regularly tours the Americas, Europe and Asia as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist; in the latter capacity he has presented over thirty concerti with dozens of orchestras.
John Novacek’s major American performances have been heard in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, 92nd Street Y, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Symphony Space, Washington’s The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Hollywood Bowl and Royce Hall, while international venues include Paris’ Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Salle Gaveau and Musée du Louvre, London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre, as well as most of the major concert halls of Japan. He is also a frequent guest artist at festivals, here and abroad, including New York City’s Mostly Mozart Festival and those of Aspen, Cape Cod, Caramoor, Chautauqua, Colorado College, Ravinia, Seattle, SummerFest La Jolla, Wolf Trap, BBC Proms (England), Braunschweig (Germany), Lucerne, Menuhin and Berbier (Switzerland), Majorca (Spain), Sorrento (Italy), Stavanger (Norway), Toulouse (France) and Sapporo (Japan).
Often heard on radio broadcasts worldwide, John Novacek has appeared on NPR’s Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and, as both featured guest composer/performer, on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. He is also frequently seen and heard on television, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Entertainment Tonight and CNN International.
John Novacek is a much sought-after collaborative artist and has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Emmanuel Pahud, Truls Mork and Leila Josefowicz, as well as the Colorado, Harrington, New Hollywood and Ying string quartets. He has also given numerous world premieres and worked closely with composers John Adams, John Harbison, Jennifer Higdon, George Rochberg, John Williams and John Zorn.
John Novacek took top prizes at both the Leschetizky and Joanna Hodges international piano competitions, among many others. He studied piano with Peter Serkin, Bruce Sutherland and Jakob Gimpel and chamber music with Jamie Laredo and Felix Galimir, and occasionally coached with Gary Graffman and Isaac Stern.
John Novacek’s own compositions and arrangements have been performed by the Pacific Symphony, The 5 Browns, Concertante, Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo, Harrington String Quartet, Ying Quartet, Millennium, Quattro Mani and The Three Tenors. He has recorded over 30 CDs, encompassing solo and chamber music by most major composers from Bach to Bartók, as well as many contemporary and original scores. Mr. Novacek records for Philips, Nonesuch, Arabesque, Warner Classics, Sony/BMG, Koch International, Universal Classics, Ambassador, Pony Canyon, Four Winds, Arkay, Virtuoso and EMI Classics. CD titles include Road Movies (2004 GRAMMY nomination as “Best Chamber Music Performance”), Great Mozart Piano Works, Spanish Rhapsody, Novarags (original ragtime compositions), Classic Romance, Hungarian Sketches, Intersection, Romances et Meditations and, with Leila Josefowicz, Americana (GRAMOPHONE: “Editor’s Choice”), For the End of Time, Shostakovich and Recital (BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE: 5 stars/June 2005's chamber choice).