APHC: Special Guests

Special Guests
Saturday, October 30, 1999

Though the group's personnel has changed over time, The Battlefield Band has thrived for nearly 30 years. Taking their name from the Glasgow pub in which the group was formed, the band plays an amalgamation of traditional Scottish music and modern composition. Critics have said that The Battlefield Band combines "the classical Celtic music of the Scottish Highlands with the contemporary rock-oriented folk music of modern Britain." Although fiddle, bagpipes and guitar are common instruments in Celtic bands, Battlefield Band is credited with being the first to add synthesizer. Providing the sound of an organ, parlor piano, or drums, as necessary, synthesizer adds a fullness not heard in most traditional groups. The band tours extensively, including past visits to Singapore, Australia, Syria, Jordan, India, Sri Lanka, and Egypt, as well as throughout Europe and Canada. They are currently in the midst of a U.S. tour to promote "Leaving Friday Harbor" (Temple Records), which was released in August. The CD includes "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura's Reel," and is the latest in a string of more than fifteen albums the band has released. The current lineup is founding member Alan Reid (keyboards, guitar), Mike Katz (Highland bagpipe), John McCusker (fiddle), and Davy Steele (guitar, cittern, bodhran).

Gil Shaham was born in Illinois in 1971, and grew up in Israel. He started playing the violin at the age of seven, and made his debut as a soloist with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra at ten. The following year, he performed with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, took first prize in the Claremont Competition, and was admitted into The Juilliard School in New York. In 1989, he began studies at Columbia University in New York. He has performed with leading orchestras and music festivals across the world, and in 1992 gave his debut recital at Carnegie Hall. In 1995, Shaham toured Japan with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and gave recitals in Italy. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in August of this year, playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the Israel Philharmonic and Maestro Mehta. Recording exclusively for the Deutsche Grammophon label since 1987, Shaham has made 16 recordings, including a CD of Dvorák works with his sister, pianist Orli Shaham, and his latest recording, "Pärt: Tabula rasa," with his wife, Adele Anthony and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Shaham plays a 1699 Stradivarius called "Countess Polignac" after its onetime owner, believed to have been Benjamin Franklin's mistress when he was ambassador to Paris.

Born in Tasmania, Adele Anthony began playing the violin before she was three and performed in a Royal Command Performance before HRH Prince Charles at age ten. At 13, she was the youngest winner of the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition, and debuted as a soloist with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 1983 (she has since appeared as a soloist with all six symphony orchestras of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). In 1996, she won first prize in Denmark's Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition. Anthony has recorded an all-Schubert album on the Naxos label, as well as Paganini's Concerto #1 (ABC Classics Polygram), Fauré's Sonata #3 (REM), and Pärt's Tabula rasa with her husband, Gil Shaham (Deutsche Grammophon). Anthony plays a 1735 Guarneri del Gesu violin, on extended loan from the Stradivari Society, an organization that acquires antique Italian instruments and makes them available to artists of exception talent.

Joining Shaham and Anthony tonight on the piano is Charles Kemper.