Toru Kawakami, Iku Miwa Brahms & Franck

Grammy-nominated, award-winning (Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards in 2017 and 2018), a concert violinist since the age of 4, and hailed by American Record Guide as “marvelous in the tradition of Heifetz”, Elmira Darvarova caused a sensation, becoming the first ever (and so far only) woman-concertmaster in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. With the MET Orchestra she toured Europe, Japan and the United States, and was heard on the MET's live weekly international radio broadcasts, television broadcasts and CDs for Sony, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI. As concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera she has performed with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. She performs with the New York Piano Quartet, the Delphinium Trio, the Quinteto del Fuego, the Amram Ensemble, and in a duo with Fernando Otero.

After its début as soloist with the director Zubin Mehta in the concert of celebration of 70 birthdays of your Majesty Reina of Spain, Ann Maria Valderrama has devoted herself like one of the most acclaimed Spanish violinists of the moment and a clear emergent value of the European musical panorama.

Tabea Zimmermann and Kirill Gerstein return to the studio to record the follow-up to their highly praised first duo album. The new disc includes spellbinding performances of three late works by significant 19th century composers: Brahms mature Sonata in F minor, Schubert s melancholic Arpeggione Sonata, and Franck s splendid Sonata in A major, all masterly performed on viola.