Search - Katrina Szederkényi (harp) :: Fantasias & Fugues - Music for Harp: J.S. Bach; Michael Kimbell; Elias Parish-Alvars; Henriette Renié; Joaquín Turina

Perhaps more than any other pairing in Western art music, the combination of the Fantasia and the Fugue best represents the diverse demands made of the musician. The performance of a fugue requires rigor, precision, complete control of voicing and acuity of touch. On the other hand, the fantasia calls on the musician to express his personal artistry, the magic and majesty of his vision, he is permitted to escape the bar-line it is the inner life articulated. This recital cunningly integrates works which call for both mastery of fugal writing (as in the works of J.S. Bach, Turina and Kimbell) and of immense imaginative skill (as with the works of Parish-Alvars and of Renie). One might easily argue that the unique and varied colors of the harp, by turns hazy and full of warmth, but with precise and percussive attack, make it suited above almost any other instrument to render such music. Born in Canada, Katrina Szederkenyi is an internationally acclaimed harpist, having won numerous prizes at international competitions in Belgium, Hungary and Russia. Szederkenyi started playing the harp at the age of 12, and was accepted for full-time solo instrumental studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna after only four years. In 2013, she graduated with a soloist's diploma with distinction from the Hochschule fur Musik in Frankfurt, under the tutelage of Prof. Françoise Friedrich. An active orchestral musician, Szederkenyi has performed in numerous notable orchestras, including the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. She has worked with prominent conductors including Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Herbert Blomstedt and Riccardo Chailly. As a chamber musician, she has performed with members of the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Gewandhausorchester. Szederkenyi is also highly active in broadening the harpist's repertoire, for both soloists and chamber musicians. In 2009, she premiered Poeme by Michael Kimbell, a work for violin and harp written for her and Nandor Szederkenyi, her father and chamber music partner. Kimbell's Ballade Arctique, also written for Katrina, was premiered in 2013.