In the spotlight: questions for the artists in the »FAST LANE« series

Leading the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera as its concertmaster at the age of 25 – for Yamen Saadi, that’s no pipe dream, but simply the latest step in a meteoric career. The violinist from Nazareth first came into contact with the violin through television, and was immediately mesmerised by the instrument’s sound. The decision regarding »his« instrument was made, and he took the first – self-determined – step of his music career by starting lessons at the Barenboim-Said Conservatory in his home city.

He soon became a student of Chaim Taub, the long-standing concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and he gave his debut as a soloist with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra at the age of eleven. At the same time, he was accepted into Daniel Barenboim’s famous West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, where he climbed the ranks to become concertmaster. For his studies, he initially moved to the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin, before subsequently joining the elite training programme at the Kronberg Academy in Hesse. Yamen Saadi received three scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and the Jürgen Fitschen/Friederike Lohse patronage of the Kronberg Academy, and he was the winner of the 32nd Aviv Competition and of the Paul Ben-Haim Competition. As a soloist, he regularly performs with leading orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Israel Philharmonic, where he gave his acclaimed debut in May 2022 as a stand-in for Leonidas Kavakos.

He is also an active chamber musician, performing internationally with various ensembles. His musical partners include legendary figures such as Daniel Barenboim, Guy Braunstein and Alisa Weilerstein. He has performed in venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris, New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Pierre Boulez Saal, and at prestigious festivals such as the Rheingau Music Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Born in Madrid, Sara Ferrández – as the child of professional musicians – was introduced to the viola at the age of three. And, thanks in particular to the influence of her mother, who worked with small children as a music teacher, Sara’s career quickly blossomed. When she was just 13, she was accepted as a junior student at the renowned Reina Sofía School of Music in her home city of Madrid. With support from the Juventudes Musicales de España and Hezekiah Wardwell (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) scholarship programmes, she then switched to the Hanns Eisler School of Music in order to study with the star violist Tabea Zimmermann. After gaining her Master’s degree, she began studying with Nobuko Imai at the Kronberg Academy in 2021.

Sara Ferrández is a graduate of the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, and a member of Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s renowned ensemble Mutter’s Virtuosi. Her career as a soloist began in childhood in some of Spain’s major concert halls, where she continues to perform as a soloist with numerous leading orchestras. She has also given guest performances at numerous international festivals such as the Verbier Festival, the Arezzo Festival and the Utrecht Chamber Music Festival, as well as in venues such as the Berliner Philharmonie and the Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg. She has already performed with well-known artists such as Janine Jansen, Beatrice Rana and Vilde Frang. »En la intimidad«, her acclaimed first recording featuring Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G Major, was released in March 2023.

»A new genius on the cello« – the Paris newspaper Le Figaro is unequivocal about Pablo Ferrández’s exceptional talent. Like his sister Sara, he began his musical journey in early childhood, choosing the cello, the same instrument as his father. As a teenager, he studied with Natalia Shakhovskaya at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, and then, like his sister and Yamen Saadi, at the Kronberg Academy. He was a finalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2015, and is now an Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation scholarship holder and exclusive artist with Sony Classical. His debut album »Reflections« (2021) won the Opus Klassik Award. Pablo Ferrández has also been a winner at the Cello Competition in Liezen, the Prix Nicolas Firmenich de Violoncelle, the Leyda Ungerer Music Prize and the Edmond de Rothschild Prize.

As a soloist, he is already playing in the classical world’s premiere league. He regularly performs across America, Europe and Asia with top orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, to name but a few. He also works with internationally acclaimed conductors such as Chung Myung-Whun, Edward Gardner, Manfred Honeck, Gustavo Dudamel and Semyon Bychkov. Performances at prestigious chamber music festivals round off the global career of this exceptional musician, about whom the Los Angeles Times says: »Pop-idol magnetism, superb technique and exhilarating musicality reveal a star in the making!«

When Samara Joy walked away from this year’s Grammy Awards with two prizes (Best Jazz Vocal Album and Best New Artist), she became established as one of the greatest singing talents in the contemporary jazz world. Her voice and her musical expression are characterised by a naturalness, maturity and warmth that put her on a par with the great female jazz voices of the 20th century. In the legendary clubs of her home city New York, the young musician has long been an audience favourite, but even outside the USA she’s by no means an unknown.

Raised in the Bronx, she was always surrounded by music in the family home. Her father and her grandparents are professional gospel musicians, and their infectious passion for making music was a formative influence for Samara. In the neighbouring church, she joined in the classics of the gospel repertoire from an early age, before taking up the role of worship leader as a teenager.

While studying singing at the Jazz Department of New York’s Purchase College, Samara Joy discovered another musical cosmos beyond that of her family and fully immersed herself in the world of jazz. She soon earned herself the sought-after title of Ella Fitzgerald Scholar, and she won the prestigious Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2019.

Joy was already working on her debut album during her time at college, and she both graduated magna cum laude and released the album in 2021. Her records have garnered rave reviews, and JazzTimes immediately named Samara Joy their Best New Artist of 2021. She subsequently toured the USA and Europe, and has given guest performances at renowned jazz festivals such as Monterey and Newport. Her second album titled »Linger Awhile« followed earlier this year, winning two Grammys and further accelerating the American singer’s meteoric rise.

Being an artist who makes a difference – the young American Randall Goosby has dedicated his career to that aim. As a student at the legendary Juilliard School in New York, he was taught by such influential figures as Itzhak Perlman, who is also a career mentor to him. Goosby gave his debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 13. Since then, the winner of the First Prize at the Sphinx Concerto Competition in 2010 and of the Avery Fisher Scholarship in 2022 has gone on to make his mark on the North American and European music world. The current season will see him making his debut with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic under renowned conductors such as Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Andreas Nelsons, Manfred Honeck and Dalia Stasevska.

Activities in the field of education and outreach are an important priority for the young violinist. He has collaborated with voluntary organisations such as the Opportunity Music Project in New York and countless other charities across the United States. Together with his long-standing piano partner Zhu Wang, he released his debut album Roots in 2021 – a homage to Afro-American composers who paved the way into the classical music world for him and other people of colour.

In spring of this year, he released his recording of Florence B. Price’s violin concertos with Yannik Nezet-Seguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra. »This playing isn’t dressed to impress but to express«: that was Gramophone Magazine’s verdict on the new recording, through which Goosby reaffirms his status as one of the leading artists of the young generation.

When a young girl chooses her father’s cello case as a place to hide when playing, you know for sure that this is a childhood in which music is a part of everyday life. Julia Hagen comes from a Salzburg family that has produced a number of great musicians: her father Clemens Hagen is a cellist with the Hagen Quartet, one of the most renowned chamber music formations of recent decades. In Julia Hagen’s childhood, music by no means dominated at the expense of other interests or subjects, but it was there from the very beginning. In her early teens, she decided to make the cello the focus of her career.

When she was twelve, she began to study at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, and switched four years later to the Austrian capital, where she was taught by legendary figures such as Heinrich Schiff. She was then drawn to move even further afield, and eventually left her native Austria to complete her studies from 2015 at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she attended Jens Peter Maintz’s class.

It goes without saying that the young cellist, with her pedigree, carries on the chamber music torch, and she has already worked with famous musicians such as Igor Levit, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Katia Buniatishvili and the Artemis Quartet. Since her debut as a soloist at the age of 14, she has also been comfortable in that role and has already given guest performances with orchestras such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin.

Naturalness, warmth and the courage to take risks – with these qualities, she impresses in various aspects of the repertoire and in all sorts of musical constellations. The recipient of the Beethoven Ring 2023 and winner of the 2016 Mazzacurati Cello Competition thereby distinguishes herself as one of the most exciting young cellists around.

The relentless productivity of the British music scene in recent decades has repeatedly defined the avantgarde in genres such as pop and rock, but London’s rich classical scene is equal in every way. The London-born musician Alexander Ullman is a product of this first-class tradition in musical training and practice, and his career was elevated to an international level when he won the prestigious Liszt Competition in Budapest in 2011.

Ullman studied at the Curtis Institute and at the Royal College of Music in London, where he completed his Artist Diploma in 2017 with the added honour of being named the Benjamin Britten Piano Fellow. Over the course of his training, he has had a number of outstanding and influential teachers, including Leon Fleischer, one of the leading pianists of the 20th century. Ullman is now a regular presence at leading international concert halls as a soloist with orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as giving solo recitals and concerts as an accomplished chamber music partner.

Be that in live performances or on his CD recordings – Alexander Ullman impresses with a deep understanding of musical structures, which he fuses with technical finesse and elegant sound to create a captivating overall experience. On his 2022 recording of Franz Liszt’s piano concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton he was able, in what are generally regarded as powerful virtuosic pieces, »to make the intimate and tender moments shine particularly brightly« (ORF).