CONCERT: Kai Vogler, violin and Mirjana Rajić, piano
MADLENIANUM, Zemun,
4 October at 20:00h
25 years of German Reunification
The concert by the exceptional German violinist Kai Vogler’s, and Serbian pianist Mirjana Rajić held on Sunday, 4 October at Madlenianum, in cooperation with Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Belgrade, marked the 25th anniversary of German Reunification.
Kai Vogler, violin (Germany)
The Violinist Kai Vogler comes from a musical family in Berlin. He received his first violin lessons at the age of five, and later studied at the Hanns Eisler College of Music in Berlin under Michael Vogler and Werner Scholz, and under Wolfgang Marschner in Freiburg. While still a student, he won several international prizes as in the Spohr and in the Francescatti competition.
In 1989 he became the leader of the Dresden Staatskapelle. He also performs intensively as a soloist and chamber musician. Playing at the Marlboro Music Festival for several summers, he worked and performed together with Paul Tortelier, Isidore Cohen, Bruno Canino, David Soyer and Siegfried Palm.
In 1990, together with pianist Roglit Ishay and cellist Peter Bruns, he founded the Dresden Piano Trio.
As a soloist he performed throughout Germany, in Israel, in Asia and Europe, for instance, several times under the baton of Giuseppe Sinopoli, playing the Beethoven Triple Concerto and the Schumann Violin Concerto. Besides his extensive repertoire of classical and romantic pieces, he also devotes himself to less frequently performed violin concertos as by Philip Glass, Schnittke or A. Berg.
Kai Vogler is one of the founders of the Moritzburg Festival, one of the Germanys most interesting and international acclaimed chamber music festivals.
He has recorded for various labels, as Berlin Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, BIS, Hänssler and Sony Classical. In 1998 a live recording of the complete Beethoven Violin sonatas with pianist Roglit Ishay was released. The latest releases were a recording of Dvorak’s „Dumky“ with the Dresden Piano Trio and „Ein Heldenleben“ by Strauss with the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Mirjana Rajić, piano (Serbia)
“Mirjana Rajić has a great natural talent, she plays on a very high professional level, and she has the rare gift in our time of special contact with the audience.” (Lazar Berman, 2003)
Mirjana Rajić was born in Belgrade where she started studying the piano at the special school of music. Already at that time, she won several prices of festivals and competitions in former Yugoslavia.
She studied at the Music Academy in Belgrade in the class of Prof. Srdjan Grbić and in Munich in the class of Bianca Bodalia. Mirjana Rajić continued her studies in Weimar at “Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt” and later at “Accademia pianistica” in Imola (Italy), working with the legendary Russian pianist Lazar Berman, who had a great influence on her artistic development. Mirjana Rajić completed her postgraduate studies and master studies in Dresden at Hochschule für Musik “Carl Maria von Weber”, working with Prof. Winfried Apel. Mirjana passed her Diploma and “Konzertexamen” with “distinctions” and received a prize for “extraordinary achievements” at the Music Academy in Belgrade. She participated at masterclasses with Andrew Ball, Aldo Ciccolini, Michel Dalberto, Rudolf Kehrer and Amadeus Webersinke.
Mirjana Rajić has won several prizes, among others first prize at an open music competition in Munich 1997 with Beethoven piano concerto Nr. 3, a special prize at the international piano competition in San Remo/Italy in 2000, and, together with clarinettist Andjei Maevski, she won the INTRO-klassisk competition in Bergen (Norway).
Mirjana Rajić is playing in Recitals, as a soloist with orchestras and as a chamber music partner in Europe, USA and Asia. She has appeared at the Dresden Music Festival, the Moritzburg Festival Academy, the Piano Festival Ruhr and Festivals in Italy, Lithuania and Serbia. She worked with renowned conductors such as Rasmus Baumann, Kristian Commichau, Hans Herbert Jöris, Ekkehardt Klemm, Joshua Rifkin, Miloš Krejči, Alexandre Damnianovitch, and others. As a chamber music partner, Mirjana Rajić collaborated with musicians such as the Australian String Quartet, Pavel Berman, Quatuor Ébène, Isang Enders, Sachko Gawriloff, David Geringas, Mikhail Ovrutsky, Mikhail Simonyan, Kai and Jan Vogler, Ensemble Mediterrane, and others.
In 2005, the Belgrade-based association of artists ‘Art-Link’ chose Mirjana Rajić as “The Most Promising Young Artist” recording and publishing her first CD with Sonatas of Mozart and Schubert. Her Solo Recital at the Piano Festival Ruhr 2007 was published as “Portrait CD”. Mirjana Rajić published her new solo CD with works of Beethoven, Liszt and Prokofiev in 2012. Her concerts have been broadcasted by the Yugoslavian Broadcast Company, the Bavarian Broadcast Company and Südwestrundfunk-Germany
From 2008 Mirjana Rajić held a guest-lectureship at the Carl Maria von Weber-Hochschule, Dresden and she is regularly giving Masterclasses in Serbia and France. Mirjana Rajić performs in a duo with German violinist Kai Vogler.
