DVD

This Russian identical twins play five piano duets on this DVD: Larghetto and Allegro (Mozart) Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos (Mozart) Rondo in C Major, Op. 73 (Chopin) Rigoletto (Verdi/Liszt) and Sicilienne (Bach). Includes interview. 64 minutes. Irina and Julia Elkina, The Elkina Piano Duo, are identical twins who have been playing together since the age of five. Shortly after leaving their native Russia in 1993, they captured the attention of American music lovers by winning the Fourth Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition, earning special notice in Time magazine. Since then they have performed to critical acclaim throughout the U.S., Europe, and Russia.

In this DVD, cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper performs solos by Faur, Schumann, Cassado, Debussy, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Popper. An interview with Reiko Cooper and accompanist John Novacek is also included. 64 minutes. Hailed by the New York Times as sensational, cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper has performed as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Kristina's recent and upcoming concerto appearances include the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Osaka Symphony, the San Salvador Symphony, and a tour of Asia with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo. Kristina has been a resident at the Marlboro, Aspen, and Spoleto USA music festivals. She has appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, is a member of the Quartetto Gelato and a founding member of the Whitman String Quartet.

Finally available in DVD format, Seymour Fink's renowned Mastering Piano Technique sets pianists of every skill level free to express their most musical ideas with a holistic approach to the keyboard based on a sound understanding of the relationship between physical function and movement and musical purpose. In this invaluable resource for pianists and teachers, Professor Fink explains his groundbreaking ideas and demonstrates his innovative developmental exercises. 86 minutes. Professor Seymour Fink, retired senior piano professor in the Department of Music, University of New York at Binghamton, has made a lifetime study of piano technique and its pedagogy. An active solo and chamber pianist, Professor Fink gives numerous master classes and lecture demonstrations on piano teaching and technical development. He brings to this study a wealth of European and American educational experience, worldwide travel and observation of the pianistic scene, and more than 35 years of piano teaching experience.

Debussy's 24 Prludes are among the greatest piano music of the 20th century, and even today, nearly 100 years after they were first composed, they present a formidable artistic challenge for pianists and a delight for music lovers. One of the world's foremost authorities on Debussy, British pianist Paul Roberts has spent decades captivating audiences throughout Europe and the United States with recitals, lecture demonstrations, and master classes on this great composer. On this DVD, he explores the exotic and colorful world of Debussy's piano Prludes, bringing the great composer's musical impressionism alive through a combination of words, images, and performance.

Rising vocal star Monique McDonald performs works by Gounod, Glck, Verdi, Faur, Gershwin, Schubert, Granados and Handel in this DVD, accompanied by Chun-Wei Kang. Also features an interview with McDonald and Kang. 64 minutes. Monique McDonald won both the Salon De Virtuosi Fellowship Grant and the George London Competition in 1998. Her credits include leading roles with the New York City Opera and Seattle Opera, Brahms's German Requiem under the baton of Lorenzo Muti, and Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate with the Orchestre Albert Schweitzer in Strasbourg, France. She performed Mozart's Mass in C Minor with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Hogwood at the Kennedy Center and made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2001 with the New York Pops. She has also performed at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.

This DVD includes an interview with the widely recognized Nobilis Trio, plus a performance of Mozart's Trio in B-flat Major, K. 502 and Smetana's Trio in G Minor, Op. 15. 64 minutes. Hailed as the trio that dares to be new, dazzling audiences with music from traditional to jazz with the highest levels of virtuosity and musicianship, the Nobilis Trio is one of the most exciting trios on the musical horizon. Violinist Ruggero Allifranchini, cellist Suren Bagratuni, and pianist Stephen Prutsman have distinguished careers as soloists and chamber musicians, and each has appeared individually - and as a member of the trio - with major orchestras and chamber music series throughout the United States and Europe.

Knauer, a soloist with the Hamburg Philharmonic, performs four timeless pieces by Mozart, Bach, Schubert and Beethoven in this DVD. Includes an interview with Knauer. 64 minutes. Sebastian Knauer has performed all twenty-seven Mozart piano concertos. He tours extensively with the Brahms Ensemble, which he founded in 1996. He has performed in major concert halls in the United States and Europe, as well as Israel, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates, and collaborated with world-renowned conductors, including Neeme Jrvi, Christoph Eschenbach, and Philippe Entremont. A prize-winner at numerous competitions, he made his concert debut at age thirteen and shortly afterward made his international debut in Venice as part of a European Concert series organized by RAI, Italy's state television and radio.

Through the climactic scene of La Traviata the good doctor clowned, interpreted, gestured and flung his eminently quotable metaphors at us and a performance began miraculously to take shape. The problem for singers is that opera is difficult enough as music, let alone as stagecraft. Miller cajoled, joked, visibly eased tensions between contending forces, provided props, explained nuances. By the end, drama had emerged from opera. Magic, underpinned by a great deal of hard work. -The Listener

Taking scenes from The Relapse by John Vanbrugh as the text, Callow directs a workshop of young actors and subjects them to his own rigorous and scrupulous appraisal. -Radio Times The art of acting in Restoration Comedy, the buoyant, often bawdy romps which celebrated the re-opening of the English theatres after Cromwell's dour reign, is the subject of Simon Callow's bold investigation. There is cause again to celebrate as Callow, one of Britain's foremost actors and directors, aims to restore the form to all its original voluptuous vigor. Callow shows the way to attain the clarity and hilarity in some of the most delightful roles ever conceived for the theatre.