 | This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(November 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
Alon Sariel (born 11 May 1986 in Beersheba, Israel) is an Israeli mandolinist, lutenist and conductor.
Alon Sariel was born in Beersheba, Israel, the youngest of five siblings. He started playing the mandolin at the age of eight as student of Dora Bartik at the Beersheba Conservatory. Due to a sabbatical year of his father at the University of Caltech, Pasadena, Alon spent a year in Los Angeles with his family, where he was exposed to the Bluegrass mandolin style. Returning to Israel at the age of 13, he continued his musical education in the mandolin class of Lev Khaimovich at the Beersheba Conservatory, as well as music literature and theory with Mila Kosorovitzky, Gila Wolfson and Larisa Smoliar. For some years he also attended piano and percussion classes from Fania Eisenberg and Vadim Galil at the conservatory. At this stage, Sariel received a mandolin made by Arik Kerman, an instrument which would accompany him for almost 20 years.
In 2004, Sariel was accepted to Motti Shmitt's mandolin and violin class at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and later followed orchestra conducting studies with Evgeny Tsirlin. Following an invitation from Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Sariel joined the orchestra on tours between 2007 and 2012, playing mandolin excerpts and following Maestro Barenboim's work.
Besides his formal studies, Sariel joined courses and masterclasses and received guidance from conductors Yoel Levi, Martyn Brabbins and Benjamin Zander, mandolinists Ugo Orlandi, Carlo Aonzo and Avi Avital, domrist Tamara Volskaya, violinists Sophie Gent and Ilan Gronich, lutenist Ophira Zakai and recorder player Corina Marti. Among his teachers in Jerusalem were Michael Melzer, David Shemer, Michael Wolpe, Zvi Avni, Menachem Zur and Menachem Wiesenberg.
By the time, Sariel graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in 2009, he has won first prizes in every of the academy's competitions he was allowed to attend, including the competition for string instruments (2006), the chamber music competition (2007) and the conducting competition (2009).
Through the program Erasmus Mundus, Sariel was able to study at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in 2008, where he started playing the lute under Philippe Malfeyt and continued studying orchestra conducting with Ronald Zollman. During that time Alon was invited by mandolinist Ralf Leenen to join his Antwerp based ensemble La Napolitaine on tour to Japan, together they performed in Tokyo and Kyoto among other cities.
Between 2010 and 2015 he was registered at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover with a major in lute under Hans-Michael Koch and conducting with Paul Weigold and later Martin Brauß. In some of these years he also participated at the Winter Akademie of the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, and received guidance from Joachim Held (lute) and Margit Schultheiß (historical harp).
As a mandolin soloist, Sariel has performed with most of the Israeli orchestras, often as conductor as well. These include the Jerusalem Symphony, the Tel Aviv Soloists, the Haifa Symphony, the Israeli Sinfonieta and Israel Chamber Orchestra. Following several competitions won in the UK, Sariel was invited to perform with English orchestras. These include Airedale Symphony, London International Orchestra, Imaestri and The Orchestra of the City who commissioned for Sariel the Sinfonia Concertante for mandolin and strings "Nedudim" by Gilad Hochman (2014). This work was recorded by Sariel and the Kammerorchester Berlin for the label Neue Meister in 2016. As a continuo player Alon Sariel collaborated with ensembles such as Elbipolis Barockorchester Hamburg, KlangForum Heidelberg and Holland Baroque, to name a few.
In 2015 Sariel founded Concerto Foscari, an international ensemble playing historical instruments, to realize his innovative musical programs and ideas. At the same year he co-founded the quartet PRISMA, together with violist Dávid Budai, recorder player Elisabeth Champollion and violinist Franciska Anna Hajdu.
As a soloist or in different formations, Alon Sariel was seen on stages such as the Berliner Philharmonie, The Royal Albert Hall, BOZAR, the Glocke in Bremen and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg. He was guest at festivals such as the Tiroler Festspiele Erl, St Magnus Festival (Orkney Islands), Carinthischer Sommer and Allegro Vivo (Austria), O/Modernt (Stockholm), York Early Music, Gezeitenkonzerte Ostfriesland, Montalbâne Festival for Medieval Music and the Biennale for New Music in Salzburg.
A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a plectrum. It most commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five and six course versions also exist. The courses are typically tuned in a interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin. Also like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.
Tamara Volskaya is a performing musician whose principal instrument is the domra. She graduated Kyiv Conservatory of Music, is a Merited Artist of Russia, a Laureate of USSR music competitions, and a Professor at the Mussorgsky Ural State Conservatory of Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Anthony Halstead is a leading figure in the period-instruments movement. First known as a virtuoso on the natural horn, he has gradually moved into the role of conductor and has directed the Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and most notably Hanover Band.
Iakovos Kolanian is an Armenian-Greek classical guitarist born in Piraeus, Greece and is best known for his performances and transcriptions of ethnic folk music for the classical guitar.
Nigel North is an English lutenist, musicologist, and pedagogue.
Zygmunt Krauze is a Polish composer of contemporary classical music, educator and pianist.
Carlo Munier (1858–1911) was an Italian musician who advocated for the mandolin's acknowledgement among as an instrument of classical music and focused on "raising and ennobling the mandolin and plectrum instruments". He wanted "great masters" to consider the instrument and raise it above the level of "dilettantes and street players" where it had been stuck for centuries. He expected that the mandolin and guitar would be taught in serious orchestral music schools and incorporated into the orchestra. A composer of more than 350 works for the mandolin, he led the mandolin orchestra Reale circolo mandolinisti Regina Margherita named for its patron Margherita of Savoy and gave the queen instruction on the mandolin. As a teacher, he wrote Scuola del mandolino: metodo completo per mandolino, published in 1895.
Ernst Wallfisch was a prominent viola soloist, recording artist and pedagogue, primarily remembered along with his wife, pianist Lory Wallfisch, as partners of the Wallfisch Duo.
Johannes Pramsohler is a violinist, conductor and record producer, specialised in Historically informed performance, currently based in Paris.
Jacob Reuven is an Israeli mandolin player. Reuven is one of the leading mandolin players that emerged from Israel in recent years. Reuven's broad musical horizons encompass everything from classical music, baroque music, contemporary music, world music, to music for modern dance and theatre.
Ayal Adler (Hebrew: אייל אדלר,is an Israeli composer. Active at the International scene, his works are performed worldswide. He is a Prof. in composition and theory at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Recipient of many awards, including Prime-Minister Award for Composition, Acum Prizes, and first prize at the RMN International Competition. Serves as Vice Director of the Israeli Composers' League.
Adriano Guarnieri is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music.
Joseph Frederick Brent is an American composer, mandolinist, multi-instrumentalist, and teacher. He is known for his performances and arrangements of rock and indie songs, as well as his original compositions with the ensemble 9 Horses. He teaches classical mandolin at Mannes College.
Avi Avital is an Israeli mandolinist. He is best known for his renditions of well-known Baroque and folk music, much of which was originally written for other instruments. He has been nominated for a Grammy award and in 2013 signed a record agreement with Deutsche Grammophon.
Roman Krasnovsky is an Israeli composer, teacher, pianist, organist, and harpsichordist.
Giuseppe Anneda was an Italian mandolin virtuoso who helped the mandolin gain more importance in the classical music world in the 20th Century. He performed with his instrument in concert halls around the world, including some where mandolin "had never entered", and taught at the Conservatory Pollini of Padua He also was able to gain access to manuscripts in museums, rediscovering works by Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Beethoven and many others.
Ugo Orlandi is a musicologist, a specialist in the history of music, a university professor and internationally renowned mandolinist virtuoso. Among worldwide musicians, professional classical musicians are a small group; among them is an even smaller group of classical mandolinists. Among members of this group, Ugo Orlandi is considered "distinguished." Music historian Paul Sparks called him "a leading figure in the rehabilitation of the eighteenth-century mandolin repertoire, having recorded many concertos from this period."
Ludwig van Beethoven composed at least six works for mandolin, four of which survive. None were published during his lifetime. Though known better as a pianist, Beethoven possessed a Milanese mandolin, which was hung beside his piano. He was friends with two prominent mandolinists, both of whom were linked to his surviving mandolin music.
Following its invention and development in Italy the mandolin spread throughout the European continent. The instrument was primarily used in a classical tradition with mandolin orchestras, so called Estudiantinas or in Germany Zupforchestern, appearing in many cities. Following this continental popularity of the mandolin family, local traditions appeared outside Europe in the Americas and in Japan. Travelling mandolin virtuosi like Carlo Curti, Giuseppe Pettine, Raffaele Calace and Silvio Ranieri contributed to the mandolin becoming a "fad" instrument in the early 20th century. This "mandolin craze" was fading by the 1930s, but just as this practice was falling into disuse, the mandolin found a new niche in American country, old-time music, bluegrass and folk music. More recently, the Baroque and Classical mandolin repertory and styles have benefited from the raised awareness of and interest in Early music, with media attention to classical players such as Israeli Avi Avital, Italian Carlo Aonzo and American Joseph Brent.
