Várjon-Baráti-Várdai Piano Trio
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About the Artists
Dénes Várjon started studying at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1984. He received tuition in piano from Sándor Falvai and chamber music from György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados, finishing his studies in 1991. Várjon is regular guest at the most prestigious international festivals such as Salzburger Festspiele, Lucerne Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Biennale di Venezia, Marlboro Festival (USA), Klavierfestival Ruhr, Kunstfest Weimar, and Edinburgh Festival. He is invited every year to András Schiff’s and Heinz Holliger’s Ittinger Konzerttage in Switzerland.
He has performed with major orchestras such as Camerata Salzburg, Academy of St. Martin-inthe-Fields, Wiener Kammerorchester, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, Russian National Orchestra. He has worked with conductors like Sándor Végh, Horst Stein, Heinz Holliger, Georg Solti, Ádám Fischer, Leopold Hager, Iván Fischer, Hubert Soudant, Thomas Zehetmair and many more. Dénes Várjon is professor at the Ferenc Liszt University in Budapest and was recipient of the Liszt and Sándor Veress Awards. From the 2010/2011 season he is guest professor at Bard College (US).
Kristóf Baráti was born in Budapest, Hungary, but a large part of his childhood was spent in Venezuela. He began his violin studies at the age of five and already from the age of eight he made his first solo performances with the leading Venezuelan orchestras. At the age of eleven he was invited to Montpellier to give a recital at the prestigious Festival de Radio France. His studies continued in Budapest with Miklós Szenthelyi and Vilmos Tátrai at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. During this period he won first prize at the Lipizer Competition in Italy and second prize in the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris.
In 1997 his career takes a new turn after winning third prize and the audience prize of the highly prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, being the youngest finalist. After this success he redefines his violin technique with Eduard Wulfson. In 2010 Baráti won the highly praised Paganini Competition in Moscow, considered as the “Oscar Prize” of violinists. Baráti performs in important concert halls around the world with major orchestras (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Russian National Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, NHK Orchestra Tokyo, WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne, Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, etc.) and conductors (Kurt Masur, Marek Janowski, Charles Dutoit, Jiri Belohlavek, Gilbert Varga, Iván Fischer, Yuri Temirkanov, Eiji Oue, Pinchas Steinberg, etc.). His chamber music partners include Richard Goode, Enrico Pace, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Misha Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Klára Würtz, Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Zoltán Kocsis, Ning Feng, Kim Kashkashian, to mention just a few.
In 2009 and 2010 he recorded the first two Paganini concertos and Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo violin for the Berlin Classics label. His recording of the Beethoven violin-piano sonatas with Klára Würtz was released by Brilliant Classics in 2012, the recording of Ysaye’s solo sonatas is 2013, that of the three Brahms violin sonatas in 2014. Kristóf Baráti has got numerous awards, including the Kossuth Prize, the most prestigious award of his native Hungary in the domain of culture.
Artist website
István Várdai, the 29 year old Hungarian cellist was honoured with several prestigious international prizes: in 2008 he won the 63th Geneva International Music Competition, and additional special prizes as well: Audience Prize, “Pierre Fournier” Prize, “Coup de Coeur Breguet” Prize. He took the third prize of the International Tchaikovsky Music Competition, Moscow in 2007. In 2006 he was awarded with the special prize of the Emanuel Feuermann Cello Competition at the Kronberg Academy and received first prize at the 13th International Brahms Competition in Austria. He was winner of the David Popper International Music Competition three times, (2000, 2003, 2004) In 2014 he won the ARD Cello Competition in Munich.
Since his debut concert in 1997 in The Hague, he has performed in New York, London, Paris, Prague, Vienna, Frankfurt, Munich, Geneva, Dublin, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Florence, Tokyo, Kobe, Beijing with great success. Along his starting career, he played with world-famous musicians and orchestras: Mikhail Pletnov, Ádám Fischer, Zoltán Kocsis, Howard Griffiths, Gilbert Varga, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Suisse Romande Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He has been invited to Santander Festival, the Gergiev Festival in St. Petersburg, the Pablo Casals Festival (Spain), Festival of Radio France (Montpellier), Bellerive Festival (Switzerland), Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Verbier Festival, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Schwetzingen Festival and the Budapest Spring Festival. In 2010 he made his debut, among others, in Carnegie Hall and the Wiener Konzerthaus and performed with Gidon Kremer, András Schiff and Yuri Bashmet in the frame of „Chamber Music Connects the World” at Kronberg Academy.
From 2004 István studied in the Class of Special Talents at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, from 2005 at the Music Academy of Vienna. Between 2010 and 2013 he continued his studies at Kronberg Academy. From 2013 he is on the staff of the Academy. He attended masterclasses of Natalia Gutman, Natalia Shakhovskaya, András Schiff and János Starker. In 2009 he was awarded the Junior Prima Prize as best young artist of the year, in 2012 he received the prestigious Prix Montblanc awarded to the world’s most promising young musician. His first CD containing pieces of Janáček, Prokofiev and the Elgar cello concerto was released in October 2009 by Ysaye Records. In 2010 he recorded the cello concerto of Johann Baptist Vanhal. On his CD released by the Hännsler label in 2013 he plays works by Mendelssohn, Martinu, Paganini, Beethoven and Popper. His recent CD with both versions of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations was released in November 2014.
Mr. Várdai is, together with Kristóf Baráti, artistic director of „Kaposfest”, Hungary’s leading chamber music festival. He plays a Montagnana cello from 1720.
Watch & Listen
Kristóf Baráti and István Várdai perform Händel-Halvorsen’s Passacaglia in 2011
Dénes Várjon performs a waltz by Liszt as a encore at a concert in Budapest in 2012.