JAZZIK #2

“Each of his appearances proves that he is one of the best conductors, with a particular passion for spreading contemporary music.” – Resmusica

Brad Lubman, American conductor and composer, has gained widespread recognition for his versatility, commanding technique and insightful interpretations over the course of more than two decades. He is much in demand with major orchestras in Europe and the US and has been successful in building regular partnerships with several well-known orchestras and ensembles, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Alongside his busy schedule in Germany, he is also frequently asked to conduct some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

In addition, he has worked with some of the most important European and American ensembles for contemporary music, including the Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble MusikFabrik, Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble Resonanz, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, and Steve Reich and Musicians.

He has conducted major international orchestras such as the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfoieorchester Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Gothenburg Symphony, or the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and has made appearances with the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Radio Symphony Frankfurt, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the SWR Symphony Stuttgart and the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Musica.

Brad Lubman is founding Co-Artistic and Music Director of the NY-based Ensemble Signal. Their recording of Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians on harmonia mundi was awarded a Diapason d’or in June 2015 and appeared on the Billboard Classical Crossover charts. In Spring 2019, he led the ensemble in the premiere of  Steve Reich’s Reich/Richter as part of the Reich Richter Pärt project at the opening of New York art space The Shed.

He is also Professor of Conducting and Ensembles at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, as well as on the faculty at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute.

Brad Lubman has recorded for harmonia mundi, Nonesuch, AEON, BMG/RCA, Kairos, Mode, NEOS, and Cantaloupe. In 2017, he was Composer in Residence at the Grafenegg Festival; his compositions have been performed by acclaimed ensembles such as the Tonkünstler Orchester Austria and musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 2020 featured the premiere of a new piece written for Rudolf Buchbinder, premiered at the Vienna Musikverein, which Buchbinder also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon.

The four talented musicians of the saxophone quartet Kebyart not only share a passion for chamber music, but also a desire to bring a breath of fresh air to classical music. Here, four musical free spirits from Barcelona have come together to open up completely new instrumentation sound pages. Each of their performances promises to be a captivating production and their name says it all: the Balinese “kebyar” means something like “to suddenly flare up” or “to burst open”— a wonderful metaphor for the so energetic and highly virtuosic music-making of the four Spaniards.

The distinctiveness of Kebyart lies in their creative and open approach to the repertoire, which has several facets: original literature as well as their own arrangements of various styles are constantly expanded with new commissioned works such as Jörg Widmann’s “7 Capricci” (world premiere 2021 Philharmonie Luxembourg), the quartet “Harmonia” by David Philip Hefti (world premiere 2023 Tonhalle Zurich) or new quartets by Guillem Palomar and José Luis Turina which were performed for the first time in the 2023/2024 season.

They also enrich the sound of the saxophone quartet through their collaborations with outstanding artists such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Xavier Sabata, Dénes Várjon or the Cor Cererols. As soloists, they are guests with orchestras such as the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra (ORTVE), Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (OBC), GIO Symphonia, Barcelona Wind Symphony and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie.

The young musicians of Kebyart are currently a hot topic of conversation not only in their Spanish homeland, but are now also making themselves heard and talked about throughout Europe. As ECHO Rising Stars (European Concert Hall Organisation), Kebyart performed for the first time in the 2021/22 season at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Vienna Musikverein, the Paris Philharmonie, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and many other European halls. In the 2022/23 season, debuts were scheduled at Wigmore Hall London, Tonhalle Zurich, StadtCasino Basel, Mozarteum Salzburg and Heidelberger Frühling. For the 2023/24 season they received invitations from the Philharmonie Essen, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Musikfestspiele Dresden and Musica Insieme Bologna.

Since the ensemble’s beginnings in 2014, the members of Kebyart have sought excellence through a relentless interest in their musical roots, with ESMUC (Barcelona) and Musik-Akademie (Basel) being their academic epicentres. The commitment to the message of music has led to them being continuously taught by some of the most renowned musicians and chamber music ensembles on an ongoing basis such as the Cuarteto Casals, Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet), Hatto Beyerle (Alban Berg Quartet), Cuarteto Quiroga, bassoonist Sergio Azzolini, pianists Claudio Martínez-Mehner, Anton Kernjak and Kennedy Moretti and saxophonist Nacho Gascón.

They have been awarded several important chamber music prizes for their interpretations, among them the Swiss Orpheus Chamber Music Competition (Switzerland), the International Franz Cibulka Competition (Austria) and two of the most important prizes in their country: the Primer Palau, organised by the Palau de la Música Catalana, and the prestigious BBVA Chamber Music Prize. They have also been part of the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA).

In April 2022, the saxophone quartet released its second studio album on Outhere-Linn Records entitled “Lectures différentes”— featuring the first recording of Péter Eötvös’ quartet of the same name and their own arrangements of Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” and a classical quartet by Haydn. In autumn 2023, the album “Traum der Jugend” was also released by Outhere-Linn Records with works by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Bach and the world premiere recording of Jörg Widmann’s “7 Capricci” dedicated to the ensemble.

Kebyart is a guarantor for modern performance in the best sense and for amazing listening experiences and with their moderations they break the boundaries between audience and performers and contribute a lot to a better understanding of the music. As ambassadors of the brands, Kebyart plays saxophones by Selmer Paris and accessories by Vandoren.