“Not since David Oistrakh, the work’s dedicatee, has there been a more passionately committed and entirely accomplished performer for this piece than Leonidas Kavakos, who was the soloist here... Played with the music coursing through his entire body, and at one with the body of the orchestra, Kavakos’ performance led to a rapid and spontaneous standing ovation, with the LSO’s leader shaking his head in admiring disbelief.”
Hilary Finch, The Times, March 2011
Leonidas Kavakos has established himself as a violinist and artist of rare quality, known at the highest level for his virtuosity, superb musicianship and the integrity of his playing. International recognition first came whilst Kavakos was still in his teens. He won the Sibelius competition in 1985 and, three years later, the Paganini Competition.
Since then, he has worked with the world’s major orchestras and conductors and has formed close ties with many – Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra with Iván Fischer, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, La Scala Filharmonica, New York Philharmonic Orchestra with Alan Gilbert, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra.
Kavakos’ repertoire is broad and he has always resisted being identified with a particular period or genre of repertoire. In addition to the great 19th and 20th century concerti which are his mainstay, Kavakos is known for his interpretations of Bach and Mozart as well as modern works such as Dutilleux L’Arbre des Songes. In April 2012, he will give the world premiere of Oswaldo Golijov’s Violin Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel.
Kavakos is a committed chamber musician and recitalist and is a favoured artist at the Verbier Festival, Montreux, Edinburgh, and Salzburg Festivals. He embarks on a Beethoven sonata cycle this season at the Wigmore hall with pianist Emmanuel Ax, and together they will take this cycle to the Vienna Musikverein in 12/13 season. Kavakos will then perform the cycle in Athens, Milan, Amsterdam and Florence with Enrico Pace. Kavakos’ many distinguished chamber music partners include Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Natalia Gutman, Hélène Grimaud, Nicholas Angelich, Nikolai Lugansky, Elisabeth Leonskaja.
Leonidas Kavakos is increasingly recognised as a conductor of considerable gift and musicianship. He was Artistic Director of the Camerata Salzburg from 2007-2009 and has since appeared with numerous orchestras including the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, La Scala Filharmonica, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Houston Symphony Orchestra. In the current season he will conduct/play with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Maggio Musicale, RAI Torino, and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Kavakos already has a distinguished discography and a number of his recordings have been awarded prizes – his recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto coupled with Mendelssohn piano trios with Enrico Pace and Patrick Demenga on Sony Classical was named ECHO Klassik Best Concerto Recording of 19th Century Work 2009. Also on Sony, he recorded live Mozart’s five violin concerti and Symphony No. 39, together with the Camerata Salzburg. In 1991, shortly after winning the Sibelius Competition, Kavakos won the Gramophone Award for the first ever recording of the original version of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto (1903/04) recorded on BIS. For ECM, he has released recordings of sonatas by Enescu and Ravel together with pianist Péter Nagy and a recording of works by Bach and Stravinsky.
Leonidas Kavakos plays the ‘Abergavenny’ Stradivarius of 1724.
Leonidas Kavakos is represented by Jessica Ford at Intermusica, jford@intermusica.co.uk.
2011-12 Season / 571 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.
Prom 44: Budapest Festival Orchestra/ Fischer, Royal Albert Hall, London
“Primary colours were again muted in the beautiful performance of Bartok’s Second Violin Concerto which followed. It was as if the soloist, Leonidas Kavakos, and conductor, Ivan Fischer, were at all times mindful that one of Bartok’s favourite composers was Strauss. Romantic reverie was the key here in a reading which felt forever poised on the edge of dreams. Kavakos took his cue from the strumming harp, lyre-like at the start, lending the rapt opening theme an air of ancient fable. Feverish dances jolted us back to reality with smouldering trills and fiery arpeggios reminding us exactly where we were – deep in the Hungarian heartlands. But it was Kavakos’s miracles of fine shading that one took away from this performance, his stratospheric song blissfully duetting with celeste at the close of the slow movement like a fading memory”.
The Independent, August 2009
Camerata Salzburg, Enrico Pace & Patrick Demenga / Mendelssohn Violin Concerto & piano trios (Sony Classical)
"The quality fibre of this serious artist is immediately on show in his violin’s opening statement, with its finely spun tone and scrupulously enunciated rhythms. He keeps his interpretation fresh and personal as Mendelssohn leads him from turbulent passion through liquid song to the finale’s delicate sparkle. The orchestra is a good partner, too.
Deluged with performances in this centenary year, I was beginning to think I never wanted to hear the work again. Kavakos’s interpretation showed me I was wrong."
The Times, July 2009
"There are over 60 recordings of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in the catalogue, but this version from Greek virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos certainly stands out among them. This is not the drooping, chastely melancholy concerto portrayed by some players like Viktoria Mullova, this is a virile, full-blooded piece. The fleet-footed dance of the finale has fire as well as grace, and the slow movement has numerous tiny inflections of tempo and phrasing which imbue the melody with urgent feeling.
Kavakos also directs his own Camerata Salzburg orchestra, which is alert to his every twist and turn. The concerto is coupled with Mendelssohn’s trios for piano, violin and cello, and if anything these are even more impressive. Pianist Enrico Pace is fabulously fleet-fingered in the scherzos, but again a deeper, weightier Mendelssohn is revealed, beyond salon grace and elfin lightness. The players even managed to make the saccharine slow movement of the First Trio seem genuinely moving."
The Telegraph, August 2009
“As a violinist whose dazzling virtuosity is rooted in the deepest musicianship, Leonidas Kavakos has few equals when it comes to the concertos of the early 20th century”
Sunday Telegraph, August 2009
“...as both soloist and conductor, Kavakos clearly generates a real rapport with the players. His account of one of the most hackneyed works in the violinist's repertoire achieves the near impossible of sounding fresh and original - there's an urgency and nervous energy about Kavakos's playing that's vividly communicated to the orchestra.”
The Guardian, August 2009
“Leonidas Kavakos plays the opening movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with restraint and intelligent musicality, cultivating purity of line and a wide expressive range… He is sentimental but never cloying in the Andante, playing its conclusion with striking freedom, and he skirts the danger with thrilling abandon in the finale.
Kavakos interacts commendably with the orchestra and seems to have pwer in reserve…
Remaining loyal to Mendelssohn for his couplings, Kavakos shows that he is equally at home in the chamber sphere. His partnership with pianist Enrico Pace and cellist Patrick Demenga spawns expressive, technically accomplished and passionately committed readings of the composer’s two piano trios. These players capture the mood contrasts of the outer movements, the lyricism of the andantes and the lightness of the scherzos with skill and artistry. The recording is exemplary.”
The Strad, June 2009
In recital with Enrico Pace / Beethoven, Shostakovich, Strauss
“The performance [of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 12, No. 3] was as buoyant and deftly inflected as a suave, witty conversation … The silken sweetness of Kavakos' 1692 Stradivarius was beyond beautiful. And, as was the norm until the 20th century, Kavakos used vibrato – a relatively close, subtle vibrato – only on long notes … it was a genuine expressive device.
The Shostakovich Violin Sonata that followed sounded very different: finely focused, its intensity closely managed, explosive when called for. Kavakos and Pace made the most of the first movement's spectral, spidery explorations. The central Allegretto was a gruff, earthy dance, with a rising pitch of desperation. Violin and piano had a solo variation apiece in the finale's unsettling passacaglia.
After intermission came the Strauss … It's hard to imagine a performance more lovingly realizing both the grand pronouncements and the sweet nothings. The slow movement is called "Improvisation," and so it seemed in a deliciously stretched and caressed account. In the violin's very first phrase, a mere three-note pickup motif could take the breath away.”
The Dallas Morning News, March 2009
New York Philharmonic with David Robertson / Bartok Concerto No.2
“Kavakos conveyed the rhapsodic flights, endless variety and subtle blend of folkloric tunes with modernistic wildness … He dispatched the virtuosic challenges with a cool command and paradoxically enhanced the bravura excitement … this performance roused the audience to a long ovation.”
New York Times, October 2008
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra with Vasily Petrenko / Beethoven Concerto
“The Largehetto was breathtaking, everything seemed to be perfect; sound, timing and expression”
NCR Handelsblad, October 2008
London Symphony Orchestra with Valery Gergiev / Prokofiev Concerto No.1
“Kavakos wove a silver thread of sound around the woodwind voices, the very stuff of fairy tales. There were malevolent contrasts, too, with beasts for every beauty, and Kavakos unlocked those with a fantastic range of gruesome colours and wicked articulation. With the closing trills, fairy dust settled over us.”
The Independent, October 2008
Recital tour with Elisabeth Leonskaja / Brahms Violin Sonatas Nos 1, 2 & 3
“Truly great art does not consist of caprioles and exhibitionist displays. It is being able to say a simple sentence, like “You are loved”, such that it is fully comprehensible – and believable. Doyenne Elisabeth Leonskaja and dynamic violinist Leonidas Kavakos achieved this with Brahms’ three violin sonatas. The first chords filled the listener with a deep sense of trust; showing the bitter-sweetness of Brahms the great comforter.
They channelled the fervent urgency of the piece into a highly focussed inner glow: there was no whining or sobbing in Kavakos’ warm tone, carried along as if by a heart-beat. … Every cadence was a gentle, unquestioning and unspeaking embrace; a home-coming. …
The lid only came off the pressure cooker in the D minor sonata – and this outpouring of energy broke the magical trance in the Herkulessaal and released the powerful applause.”
TZ München, 9 October 2008
“ …The distinguished tone of the Falmouth Stradivarius (1629) was captivating, and Kavakos coaxed a simply magnificent sound from it. … Here were two artists at work, whose understanding of the value of their own line and that of their partner’s was the basis for such an intelligently measured dialogue. The cantabile in many passages of the first movement was surpassed in the adagio, where the double-stopping on the violin was enchanting. …
The songful Sonata Op.100 was characterised by the tension between inner lyricism and passionate outbreaks. The expressive force was inherent in their use of forte, which never allowed the balance between the musicians to be lost, and seemed to be reined in at times. The melody in the andante was portrayed as a celebration, threatened by an aggressive vivace. Two masters were at work here, who knew how to draw on every nuance available.
Brahms employed a very concentrated language in Sonata Op.108; an absolute pinnacle of his art. This performance awoke the listener’s every sense in the adagio, keeping him hanging on every note until the “outrageous” conclusion. The third movement steered a course between ease and emotion towards the finale, which was filled with breath-taking contrasts. Depth of expression and intensity of passion stood hand in hand.”
Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, October 2008