"Concerto for Peter" with the Ra'anana Symphonette Orchestra, conductor - Rafi Kadishson
soloist Peter Wertheimer (saxophones, Clarinets, Bass Clarinet, and Flute)
* 1st movement * 2nd movement

Song Without Words - for Guitar Solo - 
Liat Cohen, Guitar 

Liat Cohen & Natalie Dessay The Windmills of your mind by Michel Legrand
Arranged by Rafi Kadishson 

Dubbed “a major artist” by the Miami Herald and a “quiet maverick” by the Daily Telegraph, pianist Alexander Korsantia has been praised for the “clarity of his technique, richly varied tone and dynamic phrasing” (Baltimore Sun), and a “piano technique where difficulties simply do not exist” (Calgary Sun). The Boston Globe found his interpretation of his signature piece, Pictures at an Exhibition, to be “a performance that could annihilate all others one has heard.” And the Birmingham Post wrote: “his intensely responsive reading was shot through with a vein of constant fantasy, whether musing or mercurial.” Ever since winning the First Prize/Gold Medal at the Artur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the First Prize at the Sidney International Piano Competition, Korsantia’s career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Gianandrea Noseda, Valery Gergiev, and Paavo Järvi, with such orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, Kirov Orchestra, RAI Orchestra in Turin, The City of Birmingham Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, and Israel Philharmonic.

In recent seasons Mr. Korsantia performed with the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Boston Philharmonic, Xiamen Philharmonic, and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. With The Far Cry Chamber Group, he played Galina Ustvolskaya's Piano Concerto in Boston und Tblisi.

Ever since winning the First Prize and Gold Medal at the Artur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition, Korsantia’s career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Gianandrea Noseda, Valery Gergiev, and Paavo Järvi, with such orchestras as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Turin, Cincinnati Symphony, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Alexander Korsantia is a frequent guest in many of the world's leading concert series including in Warsaw, Boston, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Vancouver, Calgary, San Francisco, Lodz, St. Petersburg, and Blaibach, including major international festivals in Tanglewood and Verbier. A passionate chamber musician, he has collaborated with other leading soloists such as Vadim Repin, Miriam Fried, Kim Kashkashian, Sergei Nakariakov, and the Stradivari Quartet.

His award-winning recordings include works by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Copland. In 2020 his recording of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 was released to great critical acclaim (with Stuttgart Philharmonic under Dan Ettinger, at German label Hänssler). His solo piano transcription of Ravel’s La Valse was published by Sikorski.

Born in Tbilisi, Alexander Korsantia began his musical education first with his mother, one of Georgia's most respected piano teachers. Later he became a pupil of Tengiz Amiredjibi, Georgia’s foremost piano instructor. In 1992, he joined the famed piano studio of Alexander Toradze at Indiana University in South Bend, USA. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the Georgian Order of Honor, National State Prize and Shota Roustaveli Prize, and the Golden Wing Award. Korsantia resides in Boston where he is a Professor of Piano at the New England Conservatory.

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Update Feb.2024

Stefano Palatchi has consolidated his international career thanks to his admirable vocation for theatre, his attractive timbre and his much applauded expressive faculties. The bass, from the city ofBarcelona, studied with Maya Maiska, Gino Bechi, Ettore Campogaliani and Armen Boyajian, in his native town as well as inFlorenceandNew York.

His tone is powerful, wide, dark, sonorous, and agile with really good low notes and nobility on stage. With his presence in almost every Spanish opera season and in some of the most respected international theatres, he has become an indispensable singer-actor and the most important Spanish basses of the last decades.

Since his debut in the Gran Teatre Del Liceu in Barcelona25 years ago, in 1986, he has won the affection of audiences. In his continued relationship with the Barcelona theatre, he has taken part in several hundred performances of more than thirty operas from a wide repertoire, in which his affinity with Verdi’s music stands out, consolidating his position as the prototype for a “basso verdiano” playing such roles as Filippo II (Don Carlo Teatro Campoamor, Oviedo), Padre Guardiano (La forza del destino, Liceu Barcelona), Jacopo Fiesco (Simon Boccanegra, Liceu), Walter (Luisa Miller, ABAO) Banquo (Macbeth, Liceu, Minnesota, Valencia, Malaga), Ramfis (Aida, Liceu, Metropolitan Opera House, Minnesota, Teatro Municipal Santiago de Chile), Sparafucile (Rigoletto, Teatro Real, Colón, Buenos Aires, Liceu, Jerez, Las Palmas) and Ferrando (Il Trovatore, Teatro Zarzuela, Real, Liceu, Campoamor) Jorg (Stiffelio, Teatro Argentino, La Plata).

However, Stefano Palatchi’s voice has allowed him to take on other styles and composers with success, such as Mozart –Die Zauberflöte (Teatro Real, Las Palmas) Puccini or bel canto -Turandot (Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Liceu, Valencia, Málaga), La Bohème (Metropolitan Opera, Washington Opera, Liceu, Teatro Real, Sao Carlos de Lisboa), Lucia di Lammermoor (Liceu, Colón de Buenos Aires, Valencia, Málaga), La Favorita (Liceu, Real, Pamplona, Campoamor de Oviedo), La Sonnambula (Liceu, Bilbao) and Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Ankara, Liceu, Las Palmas)-, as well as French opera -Samson et Dalila (Liceu, Real), Thaïs (Liceu, Las Palmas, Oviedo) or Roméo et Juliette (Oviedo, Jérez, Lausanne, Modena)- and contemporary, having performed in absolute premieres such as Balada’s Cristóbal Colón (Liceu, alongside Caballé and Carreras), Guinjoan’s Gaudi, (Liceu), García Demestres’s Joc de mans, (Modena Auditorium), Balada’s Faust-Bal, (Teatro Real, Madrid), and Halffter’s Lázaro (Palau de la Música de Valencia and the Athens Megaron). His incursions into other repertoire range from Baroque to Zarzuela, with acclaimed performances, such as his outstanding Gremin in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

In 1999, Palatchi was one of the protagonists in the reopening of the new Liceu in 1999, taking part in the opera Turandot and in the recent seasons he has sung in Madrid, Bilbao, Oviedo, Seville, Paris, Rome, Marseille, Lisbon, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Puerto Rico, Washington, San Francisco, Verona, Peralada, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or New York, collaborating with outstanding conductors (Gardelli, Bonynge, Zedda, Santi, Oren, López Cobos, Menotti, Rilling, Rozhdestvensky, Ros Marbà, Guingal, Frühbeck de Burgos, Davis or Armiliato) and from the beginning of his career, alongside artists such as Sutherland, Kraus, Aragall, Caballé, Berganza, Carreras, Freni, Milnes, Bruson, Gruberova, Domingo, Carreras, Alagna, Gheorghiu, Cura, Zajick, Bartoli, Villazón, Renée Fleming and many others.

In the field of concerts, Stefano Palatchi has extensive experience in works like Mozart’s Requiem or Verdi’s Requiem Mass, both performed in the last two seasons at the Palau de la Música, Barcelona and Peralada International Festival and recently Berlioz’s  L’enfance du Christ  on a tour  inFrance with  l’ONPL conducted by John Alexrod.

Some of his engagements in the next months include Adriana Lecouvreur and Aida at the Gran Teatre del Liceu,Barcelona and various concerts at the Palau de la Musica,Barcelona.

Stefano Palatchi has an extensive recording career (see discography section), with works for Decca, RTVE Música, Columna Música, Nightingale Classics, Koch Discover, Astrée Auvidis, Auvidis, Auvidis Valois, Sello Autor, Naxos and Opus Arte. With the recording of La Dolores, by Bretón, he obtained a Latin Grammy Award; with Margarita la Tornera, by Chapí, he was nominated for the Latin Grammy Award; and with El Gato con Botas, by Montsalvatge, he obtained a nomination for the Grammy Awards. Palatchi is patron of the Clarós Foundation dedicated to the support of acute deafness through research, prevention and education.

Arthur Fagen is in great demand as a conductor of symphony and opera in Europe, Asia, South America and the United States.  He is a regular guest at the most prestigious opera houses, concert halls, and music festivals at home and abroad. Mr. Fagen has been  Professor of Orchestral Conducting at  the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University since 2008. Additionally, he is Music Director of the Atlanta Opera since 2010. 

Mr. Fagen was born in New York where he began his conducting studies with Laszlo Halasz. Further studies continued at the Curtis Institute under the guidance of Max Rudolf, and both at the Salzburg Mozarteum and with Hans Swarowsky. A former assistant of both Christoph von Dohnanyi (Frankfurt Opera) and James Levine (Metropolitan Opera), Mr. Fagen's career has been marked by a string of notable appearances, he has conducted opera productions at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Munich State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Berlin, New York City Opera, Theatre Capitole de Toulouse, Bordeaux Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Staatstheater Stuttgart, New Israeli Opera, Baltimore Opera, Edmonton Opera, Spoleto Festival, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Stadttheater Bozen, and from 1998 to 2001, Mr. Fagen was invited regularly as Guest Conductor at the Vienna State Opera. On the concert podium, Mr. Fagen has appeared with internationally known orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, the Czech Philharmonic, Munich Radio Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, RAI Orchestras (Torino, Naples, Milano, Roma), the Bergen Philharmonic, Prague Spring Festival, the Dutch Radio Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, to name but a few. 

Mr. Fagen has an opera repertory of more than 75 works. He has served as Principal Conductor in Kassel and Brunswick, as Chief Conductor of the Flanders Opera of Antwerp and Ghent, as Music Director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra and a member of the conducting staff of the Chicago LyricOpera. 
 
In 2002/2007 Mr. Fagen was the Music Director of the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dortmund Opera. Following his successful concerts with the Dortmund Philharmonic at the Grosse Festspielhaus in Salzburg, Arthur Fagen and the Dortmund Philharmonic were invited to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels, and in Salzburg, Beijing and Shanghai. He conducted in that period, among others, new opera productions of Siegfried, Götterdämmerung  and  two Ring Cycles.

Mr. Fagen conducted a new production of Turandot at the Atlanta Opera in 2007, opening the season with enormous success and inaugurating the new Opera House, the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. Soon after he conducted in Atlanta the contemporary opera Cold Sassy Tree by Carlisle Floyd. In 2008 he was appointed  Professor of Music in instrumental conducting at Indiana University Jacobs School of Musik in Bloomington. The season included engagements with the Israel Symphony Orchestra, Holland Sinfonia, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Dortmunder Philharmoniker, Sicily and Rome's Symphony Orchestras, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Opera de Nice, concerts in Spain (Las Palmas, Navarra) and in Taiwan. A CD for Naxos was released in October 2007, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies with the Staatskapelle Weimar.

Last two seasons Mr. Fagen conducted Beethoven's Fidelio in Portland, Akhnaten by Philip Glass and Wagner's Fliegende Hollaender in Atlanta, as well as a new production of Mozart’s Magic Flute. He conducted the NDR Hannover in Braunschweig and at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Winterthur Orchestra in Switzerland, and has been invited to conduct concerts in Italy, Spain, Poland and South America. 

Arthur Fagen was first prizewinner of the "Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductors Competition" as well as prizewinner of the "Gino Marinuzzi International Conductors' Competition" in Italy.
 
Mr. Fagen has recorded for BMG, Bayerischer Rundfunk, SFB and WDR Cologne. He records regularly for Naxos, for whom he has completed the 6 symphonies of Bohuslav Martinu. The recent Naxos recording of Martinu's Piano Concertos has been awarded an Editor's Choice in the March 2010 issue of Gramophone Magazine.

Alon Harari was born in Israel in 1982. He graduated with his M.A in Performance and B.Mus. studies with honours at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Tel-Aviv (2002-2008).

He was awarded scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation from (2005-2010), as well as a scholarship from the Colton Foundation for M.A studies (2007-2009). Alon won the first prize in the Buchman-Mehta School Competition (2004) and the Most Promising Young Artist prize at the Hilde Zadek International Competition in Vienna (2004). Alon was a finalist at the Spring Competitions for Young Singers in Israel (2008); as well as the prestigious 47th Francisco Viñas International Singing Competition in Barcelona (2010) and a finalist at the 10^th Sacred Music CompetitioninRome,Italy (2010).

He regualry appears at the Abu-Gosh Festival (since 2003) the Eilat Chamber Music Festival (2008) and gave recitals in London and Glasgow.

In 2006, he sung the role of “Zephyrus” in a Brilliant Classics recording of Mozart’s Apollo & Hyacinthus, conducted by Nicol Matt in Stuttgart,Germany 2006.  

In 2007 he made his first appearance at The Lithuanian National Opera as “Orfeo” in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, to critical acclaim.

Alon has performed with Matthew Halls (Retrospect Ensemble-London); Dan Ettinger and the ISrael Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion in Carmina Burana, and with The Jerusalem Camerata Orchestra in Dido and Aeneas by Purcell and with the Jerusalem  Symphony Orchestra.

His career took him to Germany where he performed in The Münster Opera House as Eustazio in Rinaldo by Handel, and in The Dortmund Opera House as Tolomeo in Julius Cesare by Handel to critical acclaim.

During the 2011- 2012 season, Alon performed in Ottone at the Handel Festival in Halle, Germany, as Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare  by Handel at The Finnish National Opera Helsinki with Maestro Howard Arman and the role of Orfeo in Orfeo ed Euridice production at the Israeli Opera.

G.F.Handel  "Ottone"  Aria of Adalberto "Bel Labbro" 

In Halle Handel festival, Germany. Conducted by Marcus Creed (June 2011)

Vivaldi  - Stabat Mater - Israel Camerata - conductor Avner Biron (may 2010)

Dido and Aneas -  Israel Camerata - conductor Avner Biron (February 2009)

The Spanish-Argentinean mezzo soprano began her studies in Buenos Aires where she was born, and continued in the Superior Conservatory in Barcelona.

The core of her repertoire lies in Monteverdi (Ottavia, Proserpina, Minerva), Mozart (Dorabella, Annio, Zerlina, Idamante, Tamiri) and Rossini (Zaida, Doralice, Roggiero), roles that she has sung in Liceu theatre in Barcelona, La Zarzuela  and Teatro Real  in Madrid, Theâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Mozart Festival in La Coruña and the Salzburger Festspiele, among others.

Especially interested in the relationship between voice and movement, she has worked in productions that combine music and modern dance in the theatres of Basel and Luzern, Hebbel-Theater in Berlin, TheOpera of Cologne, Brooklyn Academy of Music of New York, Early Music Festival in Innsbruck and for The Fish-house in San Francisco.

As a recitalist she feels a predilection for the French and Spanish repertory and has given world premiers by Montsalvatge, Frederic Mompou, Enric Palomar, David Padrós, Josep M. Quadreny and Jordi Rossinyol.

Among her recordings are the „Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi“ by Monteverdi for Harmonia Mundi under the direction of René Jacobs; for Lauda Música “El gran Burlador” (Diapason d’or:  “Grandes Voix Humaines. Henry Jacqueton”);  “Frederic Mompou”  – Warner Music- with the Real Filharmonía de Galiciaorchestra and, for Columna Música, „Frederic Mompou –Combat del somni“,  “Requiem” by Xavier Benguerel (Cd Compact 2007 award), „Montsalvatge Integral de canto (Vol I)“ and the Grammy nomineeopera „El gato con botas“ with the orchestra of the Liceu Theatre.

• Israeli Prime Minister's Prize, 2010 .
• Israeli Prime Minister's Prize. 2001 
• ACUM (Israeli ASCAP) award for lifetime achievements in composition and education.  
• Judges' Prize , ACUM (Israeli ASCAP), 1992 
• Municipality of Tel Aviv,  Engel Prize, 1991 
• ACUM Prize  for A Letter to Stravinsky 1991 
• Municipality of Haifa, the Mark Lavri Prize for The Golem, 1991  
• Guggenheim Fellowship for composition, 1981  
• The Brooklyn College Opera Theater Chamber Opera Composition  Contest, special award, 1981  
• ACUM  Prize, stipend for completion of Violin Concerto, 1977  
• Composers' Conference Felloship, Johnson, Vermont 1974 & 1975  
• ISCM Electronic Music Competition, 1975  
• Orr Prize, Jerusalem, And There Arose a Mist - Cantata for Choir, Magnetic Tape, Percussion and Brass Quintet