DUO WITH VIOLISTE URSULA SCHOCH (ENGELS)
Ursula Schoch – violin
Ursula Schoch was born in 1971 in Ludwigsburg (Germany). At the age of 4 she had her first violin lessons. In Trossingen her teacher was professor G. Baynov and after graduating from high school she studied at the Musikhochschule in Cologne with professor Saschko Gawriloff. During her studies she also took lessons in chamber music with the Alban Berg string quartet.
In 1987 she won the first prize with her Trio for ‘Jugend Musiziert’, the national musical competition for the youth in Germany. In 1990 she won the prize for the second time, this time as a solo violinist.
In 1992 she won the first prize in the ‘Deutsche Musikwettbewerb’. Consequently she was invited to play solo- and chamber music concerts , a.o. with soloworks by J.S. Bach at the ‘Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele’ and as a solist during various concert tours in Europa, Japan, Central-Asia, the United States and Africa.
From 1998 until 2000 Ursula was a member of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Starting in the 2000-2001 season she is second concertmaster of the Royal Orchestra in Amsterdam. Ursula is playing a J.B.Guadagnini violin. For the ‘Bayer Records’ label she recorded violinconcerts of Mendelssohn, Mozart, Brahms, Barber and Bruch and violinsonatas of Franck, Debussy and Poulenc.
Since 2006 violinist Ursula Schoch and pianist Marcel Worms form a duo. We performed many times in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy.
We can offer you three different programs:
1.JAZZINFLUENCES IN THE 20TH-CENTURY MUSIC FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO
For this program Ursula Schoch and Marcel Worms made a selection from the modern-classical repertoire fro violin and piano which has been influenced to a certain degree by jazz music.
The evolution of jazz in the United States at the end of the 19th and in the first decades of the 20th century also had a great influence on many classical composers in Europe and the United States. For the first time American composers had an authentic, national music at their disposal and they used it in their own idiom in a very personal way.
Many of them like
Paul Hindemith – Sonata for violin and piano in E flat major op.11 nr.1 (1918) George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Louis Gruenberg integrated the new style in their music.
When jazz appeared in Europe in the Twenties, many composers took notice. The spontaneity of the new music, its new possibilities of sound, its vital rhythm, its refined, swinging rubato and the improvisation which is an integral part of it, were elements that appealed greatly to their imagination. Each composer who used jazz elements in his work did it in his own way. One would stick closer to the model, another would only take superficial aspects of it. The Polish composer Alexander Tansman came to Paris at a young age and integrated the jazz music he heard there in his Sonatina transatlantic . His colleague Maurice Ravel had already given his personal interpretation of the blues in his Sonata for violin and piano. In Central Europe jazz music found receptive ground as well.
Erwin Schulhoff ad been working in Prague as a jazz pianist and used especially the different dances that were en vogue by that time. His colleague Wilhelm Grosz – well-known by his jazzy musical theatre work Baby in der Bar (1927) and, like Schulhoff, persecuted by the nazi’s as well – could escape in time to the United States, whereas Schulhoff died in a concentration camp.
This program gives a colorful picture of the turbulent time of the interbellum, where the arts were developing in a stormy way.
The program has been recorded on our cd Jazzettes.
For the complete repertory go to Discography.
2. A CLASSICAL PROGRAM
A selection from our repertoire:
- W.A. Mozart – Sonata for violin and piano in e minor K.V. 304
- Ludwig van Beethoven – Sonata for piano and violin in F major op.12 nr.1
- Francis Poulenc – Sonata for violin and piano (1949)
- Paul Hindemith – Sonata for violin and piano in E flat major op.11 nr.1 (1918)
3. A FRENCH PROGRAM
Sonatas for violin and piano by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, César Franck and Francis Poulenc