Friday, September 30
Sermage Gallery, 6 p.m.

Concert and presentation of LD** harpsichord and CD Laura and Pavo

Laura Vadjon, baroque violin
Pavao Mašić, harpsichord

 

Programme:

Antonio Vivaldi
Sonata in D minor, op.2 no.3, RV 14
Andante
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro

George Frideric Händel
Sonata in D major, op.1 no.13, HWV 371
Affetuoso
Allegro
Larghetto
Allegro

George Frideric Händel
Suite in F major, HWV 428
Adagio
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro

Dario Castello
Sonata seconda

Girolamo Frescobaldi
Sonata detta La Barnardinia

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Twelve variations on the theme of Les Folies d’Espagne, H.263

Arcangelo Corelli
Sonata op.5, no. 12 La Folia

*The LD harpsichord was commissioned by Michael Unsworth, patron of the Korčula Baroque Festival, and was created by the joint work of two special masters: Mihovil Depol and Zlatko Pavlinić. Mihovil Depolo is a museum preparer and furniture restorer, who lives and works in Korčula. Zlatko Pavlinić is a restorer of organs and all other historical keyboard instruments and the builder of the first harpsichord made in Croatia in 2008. He lives and works in Zagreb and is constantly on the road. He has been with us since the first edition of KBF; takes care of, tunes, and transports our and other people’s instruments in extremely demanding conditions of special climatic circumstances, coordinates transfers between locations and is in every way an irreplaceable VIP personality of the Festival! He is just as important for VBV, without him Festivals would be unimaginable! They built the harpsichord by hand according to their own design and blueprint based on the 18th century French historical school of construction. All the wood used in the production is of Croatian origin. This is their second harpsichord made in Korčula!

About the performer:

Laura Vadjon is the leading name in early music performance in Croatia. She is artistic director and concertmaster of the Croatian Baroque Ensemble. From 1999 she has performed extensively with the Ensemble in Croatia and abroad. She has worked with the world’s major baroque performers such as Catherine Mackintosh, Hervé Niquet, Richard Egarr, Werner Ehrhardt, Laurence Cummings, Philipp Pickett, Enrico Onofri, Alessandro Tampieri, Marcello Gatti, Stefano Montanari, Benjamin Bayl, Adrian Butterfield, Theresa Caudle, Rachel Brown, Aapo Hakkinnen and is a member of the London Handel Orchestra that performs regulary around Great Britain. The winner of numerous awards such as Milka Trnina, Porin, Orlando, Ivan Lukačić (VBE 2016), she has performed in about twenty countries through Europe, Russia, Japan and South America. Laura Vadjon is a professor at the Zagreb Academy of Music, where she teaches the historic interpretation on of the 17th and 18th century chamber music and is the director of the Korkyra Baroque Fesval on the island of Korčula and Pelješac peninsula whose program represents the leading in baroque ensemble and soloist music performance using time piece instruments. She is playing on an authentic period instrument, the work of the Italian violin maker Giovanni Basta Guadagnini from 1759. She is a promoter of the original sound of the music of the past and conveys her enthusiasm to colleagues, students and the audience.

 

Winner of the Bach Grand Prix and the audience award at the Bach organ competition in Lausanne (2006), Pavao Mašić is developing a successful career as a concert organist and harpsichordist. The interests of his artistic work are diverse and include the repertoire of baroque and romanticism with an emphasis on the works of J.S. Bach, French and Croatian composers and these combined with thorough research work and a constant search for the most expressive interpretations, result in striking, virtuoso and highly appreciated performances.
After completing his music studies in Zagreb, he continued his postgraduate studies in organ in Lausanne, in the class of Kei Koito and harpsichord in Freiburg with Robert Hill. He gets additional artistic impulses from working with prominent artists such as Bob van Asperen, Anđelko Klobučar, Ton Koopman, Laurence Cummings, Daniel Roth, Luigi F. Tagliavini and Christoph Bossert. In the period from 2008 to 2013, he continuously improved with the most prominent harpsichordists, such as Pierre Hantaí̈, Christophe Rousset and Skip Sempé. As one of the most established Croatian musical artists of his generation, he also works as an associate professor at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, developing a wide range of pedagogical activities and educating new generations of harpsichordists and organists. He has been working as the principal organist of the HNK Opera in Zagreb for about twenty years. He regularly performs concerts throughout South America, Russia, and Europe. He participates in the work of the jury of international competitions, is the head of the Organ Summer School, which has been held in Šibenik for more than 25 years and as the artistic director of the Organ Festival of St. Marko is responsible for the concerts of twenty world-renowned organists. The quality of his artistic work is recognized and he is the winner of more than 25 important foreign and croatian awards (Ivo Vuljević, Kantor, Jurica Murai, Ivan Lukačić, Orlando, Porin, Milka Trnina, Zagreb City Award). Behind him are many significant performances: Six Partitas and The Art of Fugue by J.S. Bach, the cycles Ascension and Nativity of the Lord by O. Messiaen, integral performances of organ work by J.S. Bach, C. Franck and D. Buxtehude, concertos for organ and orchestra by Francis Poulenc, Ante Knešaurek, Stjepan Šulek and Silvij Foretić, as well as intensive work on the preparation and printing of the collected works for organ by Anđelko Klobučar. He records for Croatian Radio and Television and Croatia Records. The diverse discography includes five solo albums crowned with a total of 11 Porins, of which even two albums: 1685 Bach, Handel, Scarlatti (2011) and Bach: The Art of Fugue (2017) were awarded as the best classical albums of the year. His recent double album entitled Franjo Dugan: Collected Works for Organ presents, for the first time, the entire organ oeuvre of this prominent composer and organist of the Zagreb Cathedral.