Thursday, May 20, 2010

Meet the Judges: José Feghali


José Feghali burst upon the music world in 1985 when he won the Gold Medal in the Seventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Ten days later, he performed his United States recital debut to a sold-out hall in Pasadena, California. Today, he is a celebrated artist who has performed over 800 concerts worldwide with renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhaus, Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic and, in the U. S. with the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Baltimore, National, Jacksonville and Nashville symphony orchestras. He has collaborated with eminent conductors, such as Kurt Masur, Neeme Järvi, John Nelson, James DePriest, Yuri Temirkanov, Leonard Slatkin, Kurt Sanderling, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christoph Eschenbach, Eduardo Mata, Sergiu Comissiona, Philippe Entremont, Andrew Litton, Zdenek Macal, Hans Graf, David Zinman and Hans Vonk.

Among his recitals on prestigious stages in the United States are those at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and in major halls in Los Angeles and Chicago, where the press hailed him as a pianist “whose gift is musicianship on the most rarefied level.” Others include the Kravis and Meyerson Symphony centers, and performances on the Cliburn Concert series and Ravinia Festival.

His extensive worldwide engagements include the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Eastern Europe, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Latin America. As a chamber musician, Mr. Feghali has collaborated with the renowned flutist James Galway, cellists Truls Mørk, Antonio Meneses and Daniel Gaisford, violinists Régis Pasquier, Olivier Charlier and Emanuel Borok, duo piano with André Watts, and performances of Richard Strauss’ Enoch Arden with tenor Jon Vickers. Mr. Feghali is an Artist/Faculty member and Associate Director of the Mimir Chamber Music Festival in Fort Worth, and a regular performer at the “Classical Action/Performing Artists Against Aids” benefit concerts.

Born in Brazil, Mr. Feghali gave his first public performance at age five and appeared with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra when he was eight. When he was fifteen, he moved to London to study with Maria Curcio Diamond and later was a scholarship student at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton.

Recordings by Mr. Feghali include a compact disc of music inspired by dance for Koss Classics and his live recording from the Van Cliburn Competition on the VAI label. Recent recordings include an all–Schumann program and an all–Brahms program with cellist Daniel Gasiform on the Anacapa Music label. For Naxos, Mr. Feghali, a major advocate of Brazilian music, recorded Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas brasileria no. 3 for Piano and Orchestra with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn.

Mr. Feghali has a special interest in recording technology and is the producer and re-mastering engineer for the retrospective set of nine compact discs for Video Artists International and VAI Audio featuring the live performances of past medalists in the Van Cliburn Competitions. He is Artist–in–Residence at Texas Christian University and serves as Vice President and Executive Director for the new Anacapa Music label.

José Feghali Web site

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