Search - Mily Balakirev, Julian Jacobson :: Balakirev

Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)--composer, pianist, conductor, aranger, teacher, organizer, and tireless champion of Russian music--was one of the most significant figures in his country's musical history. With his brilliant and forceful personality he became the natural leader of a group of composers who became famous as the "Mighty Handful": Borodin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, and himself. Balakirev was a complete master of the art of piano writing, a rarity among Russian composers, and his sadly neglected works are in urgent need of revival. Julian Jacobson's career has been almost as varied as that of Balakirev; he is a solo pianist, ensemble and duo partner, composer and arranger, conductor, and teacher. In 2003 his marathon performance of all thirty-two Beethoven piano sonatas in a single day (repeated in 2004) attracted international media coverage as well as great critical and public enthusiasm. He has recorded more than a hundred solo works for the BBC as well as several solo albums for Meridian, and has toured in over thirty countries on five continents.