MEMBERS OF THE AMMAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Tanja Sonc . Violin
Ribal Molaeb . Viola
Karim Said . Piano
Baabdath- The New Church
Thursday October 27, 2022
8 p.m.
No Reservations/No Tickets
First come first seated
Age limit: Above 7 years old
Doors Open at 7:15 p.m.
PROGRAM
W. A. MOZART (1756-1791)
Trio in E-flat major, K.498 for Violin, Viola and Piano ‘Kegelstatt’
F. CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Ballade No. 1 in G minor, op. 23
(Piano solo)
R. SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Adagio and Allegro, Op.70
(Viola and Piano)
Intermission
M. BRUCH (1838-1920)
Pieces op. 83 for Violin, Viola and Piano
(Selection)
J. BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Scherzo in Eb Major for Violin and Piano, Wo02
D. SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
5 pieces for 2 Violins and Piano (arr. for Viola, Violin and Piano)
TANJA SONC . Violin
Tanja Sonc belongs to the young generation of gifted Slovene violinists. She has received numerous awards and first prizes at national and international competitions. Among others, she won the Brahms Competition in Pörtschach (Austria, 2011) and the Ferdo Livadić International Competition for young Musicians (Croatia, 2012). Furthermore she was the absolute winner of the Young Virtuoso – Etudes and Scales Competition held in Zagreb. In 2015 she was awarded 3rd prize in the Kiwanis Competition in Zürich and in 2016 she won the New Stars Competition.
Tanja started her music education at the age of five. After studying with Primož Novšak at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, she continued at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Igor Ozim and Wonji Kim Ozim. She finished her studies with Nora Chastain at the Zürich University of the Arts in June 2017. In 2012 she was accepted as a trainee at the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich. From the season 2017/2018 she is a member of chamber orchestra ”Zürcher Kammerorchester”.
As a soloist, Tanja Sonc has performed with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sloveni-an RTV Symphony Orchestra, the Slovenian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, the Croatian RTV Symphony Orchestra and many others. She has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Marko Letonja, George Pehlivanian, Keri Lynn Wilson, Petko Dimitrov, En Shao.
Tanja participated in the Seiji Ozawa International Academy, Hohenstaufen Chamber Music Academy, Kronberg Masterclass and in the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove. She is ”Artist in Residence” at the Molaeb Festival For Chamber Music And Fine Arts.
In 2016 she founded the Sonc Festival, a chamber music festival in Slovenia. Tanja represented Slovenia on Arte TV in the Europe@Home series in 2021 with star violinist Daniel Hope.
She plays on a Jean- Baptiste Vuillaume violin from 1850.
RIBAL MOLAEB . Viola
An artist with immense range of artistic and music interest, born in Baissour Mount-Lebanon to a family of artists, Ribal Molaeb initially studied the Violin at the age of 6 at the Lebanese High National Conservatory before switching to the Viola.
In parallel to his musical education, Ribal Molaeb was personally trained as a painter by his father Jamil Molaeb. He spent his childhood in his fathers art workshop before moving to Europe.
Already at the age 16, he got invited to participate in the “Young Artists Festival, Bayreuth, Germany”.
One year later in 2010 he started studying at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg in the Class of Prof. Thomas Riebl before moving to Vienna to study at the University for Music and Performing Arts with Prof. Thomas Selditz where he got his Masters of arts degree in 2018.
As a soloist, Molaeb performed several recitals in different venues in Europe. But most significantly he performed twice at the prestigious Musikverein in Vienna.
His CD Recording “My years in Vienna” features the Brahms and the Hindemith viola sonatas as well as his own compositions.
As a chamber musician, he had workshops guided by Daniel Barenboim. Throughout his career, his chamber music partners include Kiril Troussov and Daniel Hope. He is the artistic director of his own chamber music concert series in Switzerland and have performed at several prestigious venues in Europe such as Schloss Elmau.
As an orchestra musician, Molaeb is a member of Daniel Barenboim’s prestigious West-Eastern Divan Orchestra since 2010. He also acted as a principle Violist with Seymon Bychkov and the Webern Symphony Orchestra in Musikverein Vienna.
Molaeb composed and performed theatre music for director Mounir Abou Debs, ”founder of the modern theater school in Lebanon in 1960”, and the film music of ”A Life Worth Living” and ”Jamil Molaeb, Artist Portrait”
As a Painter: His oil paintings have been exhibited in Paris, Amsterdam, Zürich, Vienna, Dubai and Beirut. He is represented by Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris and Galerie Agénor, Zürich. He currently works on daily basis in his Zürich art studio and have his paintings sold at international galleries and auctions such as Bonhams, Paris.
He is the Founder of the ”Molaeb Festival For Chamber Music And Fine Arts” which takes place at the Jamil Molaeb Museum, Mount-Lebanon. As well as the co-founder of the ”Sonc Festival” in Slovenia and is currently an artistic director at the ”SUMITO association” in Switzerland.
KARIM SAID . Piano
‘He shares Sviatoslav Richter’s incisively effortless octave technique and knack for gradually meting out rubato in the manner of a seasoned conductor’ – Gramophone Magazine
Hailed as a ‘born communicator’ by the Independent, Karim Said came to the public’s attention in 2009 playing concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra under the late Sir Colin Davis (Barbican Centre, London) and at the BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall, London).
Karim Said was born in Amman, Jordan in 1988 where he commenced his piano studies with Georgian-Iraqi teacher Agnes Bashir-Dzodtsoeva. He moved to the UK in 2000, aged eleven, to study piano, composition and conducting at the renowned Purcell School of Music and later at the Royal Academy of Music, both on full scholarships. At the Royal Academy of Music he studied with Prof. Tatiana Sarkissova. His development as a student throughout his time at the Purcell School is documented in Christopher Nupen’s film ‘Karim’s Journey’, which was broadcast on the UK’s BBC4, and in five other countries, in 2008.
Karim Said was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London in 2017.
As a soloist with orchestra, he has toured regularly performing at such halls as the Philharmonie in Berlin, Musikverein in Vienna, the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, the Musashino Concert Hall in Tokyo and at the Dubai Opera House.
Karim’s album Legacy was released on Rubicon Classics (UK) in November 2018. It received 5 Stars for interpretation and repertoire on West German Radio (WDR) and was described by Nicholas Kenyon in the Guardian/Observer as a programme ‘dispatched with intelligence and grace.’ This followed the success of his debut album ‘Echoes from an Empire’ (Opus Arte – 2015) which was one of Gramphone’s ‘Top Ten recordings of Janacek’ in 2016. The repertoire on his first album was inspired by his London recital debut series at the Southbank Centre in 2013, where he covered Arnold Schoenberg’s complete published solo works over three recitals as part of the ‘International Piano Series’ and ‘The Rest Is Noise’ festival.
Karim Said is equally at home performing chamber music and working with actors. Past events have included collaborative performances with such stage directors as the late Patrice Chereau and Vanessa Redgrave, as well as chamber music performances with Waltraud Meier, Dorothea Röschmann, Gabriel Croitoru, Adrian Brendel and the Utrecht String Quartet.
Karim Said is Director of Music at the Amman Institute for Performing Arts.
He is the founding director of the Amman Chamber Orchestra (ACO), a pan-Arab initiative based in Amman to form a hub for regional talent in classical music. He established the ACO Trio in Amman with the orchestra’s permanent leaders Ihab Jamal (co-concert master) and Jana Semaan (cello).
