RICHLAND CONCERT ASSOCIATION
April 14, 2024 – Cavatina Duo: flute & guitar
April
14, 2024 – Cavatina Duo: flute & guitar
The Cavatina
Duo - Eugenia Moliner, flute (Spain) and Denis Azabagic, guitar (Bosnia)—has become one of the most
impressive combinations of its kind in the world. Critics are raving:
“Style,
sympathy, and technical aplomb . . . it's doubtful that the Cavatina's
sophisticated and artistic playingcould be
surpassed.” —Fanfare
Dedicated
soloists and chamber musicians, the Cavatina Duo breaks convention with their
combination of instruments. Add to that their daring choices of varied and
versatile repertoire, and the result is new sounds, colors and musical
phrasings, which in return awakens a high level of emotion and audience
response. A Cavatina Duo concert is a musical experience you don’t want to
miss.
The Cavatina
Duo has captivated audiences with their electrifying performances in such major
venues and festivals as Ravinia’s Raising Stars series (Chicago), Da Camera
Society (Los Angeles), Aix-en-Provence Summer Festival (France), the National
Concert Hall of Taipei (Taiwan), National Center for the Performing Arts in
Beijing (China), National Flute Convention Gala Concert (USA), the Harris
Theater (Chicago), Kolkata International Guitar Festival (India), Foundation
Principe Felipe and Palau de la Musica (Spain), among
many others.
Radio and
television stations in Europe and North America such as WFMT and NPR have
broadcast the duo’s performances. They have been the subjects of interviews in
international magazines such as Chamber Music America, TodoFlauta
(Spain), FluteTalk (USA), Classical Guitar (UK), Guitarra Magazine (web), Soundboard (USA) and Flute—the
British Flute Society. They are the first guitar and flute duo to be featured
on the covers of both Classical Guitar Magazine (UK) and the cover of FluteTalk (USA).
Cavatina Duo
has performed with orchestras and string quartets in Europe, USA, India, South
Korea and Mexico, including the Chicago Sinfonietta,
Traverse Symphony, Sarajevo Philharmonic, Daejeon Philharmonic and the Youth
Orchestra of Monterrey, Mexico. In 2010 Cavatina Duo gave the world premiere of
another work commissioned by them from Alan Thomas, “Concerto for Flute, Guitar
and Orchestra,” with the Camerata Serbica
at the Guitar Art Festival in Belgrade.
Eugenia Moliner has been acclaimed as “brilliant” by the British
Flute Society magazine. She has performed with principal musicians from the
Chicago Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony orchestras as
well with many chamber ensembles, including the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Civitas Ensemble, Chinese FineArts
Musicians... This season she will collaborate with the Aspen String Trio. Her
discography includes seven CDs.
A
prize-winner in twenty-four international competitions, Denis Azabagic has been described as a “virtuoso with flawless
technique” by Soundboard Magazine. He has appeared as soloist with orchestras
such as the Chicago and Madrid Symphonies, among many others. Azabagic has collaborated with the Chicago Chamber
Musicians, the Civitas Ensemble and the Cuarteto Casals. His discography includes twelve CDs, two
DVDs and a book “On competitions-Dealing with the performance stress”.
The duo has
compiled a substantial number of recordings on the Spanish and North American
labels Opera Tres, Cedille,
Bridge and Orobroy Records.
For “The
Balkan Project” (Cedille 2010) Cavatina Duo
commissioned new works for flute and guitar; they selected nine composers and
chose music from the Balkans, reflecting Azabagic's
heritage.
Their
following release was “Cavatina Duo Plays Astor Piazzolla”
(Bridge 2010). This time they commissioned Grammy winner Sérgio
Assad and his daughter Clarice, a rising star in the music world, to
arrange/compose many works originally written for other combination of
instruments or, as in the case of the Flute Etudes, creating the guitar part as
well. Mr. Assad, having worked with Piazzolla
himself, was the perfect match for this project.
Denis and
Eugenia are constantly researching for new musical ideas and projects, and this
brought them to their "Sephardic Journey" (Cedille2016), which
consists of new commissions of works based on Sephardic melodies from five
leading composers. The world premiere was held at the Ravinia Festival with the
renowned Avalon Quartet in March 2016 and the CD was released on Cedille Records of that same year.
In spring of
2017 will be the release of a new CD with the renowned German Record Company
NEOS, where Azabagic and Moliner
are featured Artist on a piece together with the soprano Patrice Michaels,
playing music of Laurie Altman. Multi Grammy winner Judy Sherman produced this
recording.
Upcoming
recording projects include an all Baroque CD with Bridge Records and a new
release with Cedille Records inspired by Gypsy music
from around the world.
Denis Azabagic and Eugenia Moliner are
Artists-Faculty at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt
University and teaching associates at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
UIC.
Visit them
at:
www.CavatinaDuo.com
www.Azabagic.com
Copyright © 2023 Richland Concert Association
Last
update 0505/23