Acclaimed as “a player of impressive authority and presence” (The Strad), and “one of the top violinists of tomorrow” (Diapason), at the age of 21 Belgian born Yossif Ivanov has an impressive list of musical prizes and concert appearances. When he was only 16 he won the First Prize at the Montreal International Music Competition, followed two years later by a Second Prize, as well as the Prize of the Public at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Yossif Ivanov was named as the Echo Rising Star by the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels for the 2005-6 season, and as part of that prize, performed a recital tour, which included amongst others Carnegie Hall, Musikverein Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Symphony Hall Birmingham. In April 2007, he made his highly acclaimed debut in London, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop. Yossif has studied with Zakhar Bron in Lübeck, Igor & Valery Oistrakh at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and with Augustin Dumay at the Queen Elisabeth College of Music. In 2006 Yossif Ivanov’s first CD on the Ambroisie/Naïve label of sonatas by Franck, Ysaÿe and D’Haene, was awarded a Diapason d’Or de l’Année, the most important record industry award in France.
Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto was originally written during 1947 and 1948. He was still working on the piece at the time of the Zhdanov decree, and in the period following the composer's denunciation the work could not be performed. It was finally premiered by its dedicatee David Oistrakh on 29 October 1955 with the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky. The work has a dark brooding central core and is in many ways a musical representation of the composer’s uneasy relationship with the state. Béla Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 was written between 1937and 1938 and dedicated to the Hungarian violin virtuoso, Zoltán Székely. Although he was filled with serious concern about the growing strength of fascism at the time, the composition is generally lyrical and optimistic in tone. It was was premiered by Székely at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam on March 23, 1939 with Willem Mengelberg conducting the Concertgebouw orchestra.
