Chloe Hanslip's Blog

Greetings everyone! So sorry that it has taken me so long to write another blog, but I have been ridiculously busy these last few months.

As usual I am writing this on an airplane, this time on my way back from Karlstad  in Sweden where I played Tchaikovsky. I was last there a couple of years and it was great to work with the orchestra and their conductor, Henrik Schaefer, again.  They also have a new hall there which is amazing!Wonderful acoustics and a real joy to play in.

That concert was preceded by one of those trips where you think, I must be mad!  The Karlstad concert was on Wednesday but I also had a concert in Napa Valley (another return trip) on the Sunday afternoon.  So, the 36 hours went something like this… concert in Napa, playing my first ever Brahms which was extremely exciting and wonderful to work with both the orchestra again and also with Maestro Foerster.  Jump in a car to San Francisco airport for a flight at 2100, land in Munich at 1700 on Monday, catch a flight to Stockholm that same evening,  overnight in Stockholm airport, get an 8am flight to Karlstad and have a rehearsal at 1330…!  Suffice it to say I was slightly zombie – like by the time I got to Monday evening, but by the time it got to the concert on Tuesday I felt pretty much back to normal.

This trip to Karlstad also marks the last of my 3 concerts in Sweden for this season, all of which have been in the last month.  For the first one we have to jump back to the middle of April, when I performed the Beethoven in Vasteras with Johannes Gustavsson.  This is such an amazing concerto and always wonderful to play.  This particular concert was recorded for broadcast on Swedish radio and was highly enjoyable.  The second concert in Sweden was my first ever performance of the Berg Violin Concerto in Helsingborg.  It is such an immense piece, almost daunting in a way, and beautiful in a slightly unconventional way but it was great fun to work with both the orchestra and Stefan Solyom.

Before all of that, I played Prokofiev No 2 in Cadogan Hall with the RPO and Grzegorz Nowak.  As ever, it was wonderful to work with RPO again and, as Prokofiev 2 is one of my favourite concerti, it was an extremely enjoyable concert. Directly before that was Korngold in St Gallen with Mikhail Agrest.  It was lovely to be back in St Gallen to work with the orchestra and also really nice to play the Korngold again.  It really isn’t played enough in my opinion and I’m not quite sure why.  It has such a wonderful feel to it throughout the piece and the second movement is absolutely gorgeous!

Prior to that was my first trip to Israel in 10 years and where I was performing at the Eilat Chamber Music Festival.  I played a recital with Bella Steinbuch and then Shostakovich Piano Trio with Oxana Yablonskaya and Hillel Zori.  The Shostakovich is a great favourite of mine, and I think it is fair to say that this was one of the most fun performances I have ever done of this piece.  Everything seemed to just slot into place – always a nice feeling!  In fact, the whole festival was wonderful and I even managed to have  a couple of hours sunbathing – something that doesn’t happen very often!

So that takes us back to February,  in which I did a recital and 2 concerti – a pretty light month all things considered!  The first of those was in Tampere (where the temperature was – 15!), where I performed the Brett Dean Violin Concerto with the orchestra there and Hannu Lintu.  Hannu and I first worked together about 4 years ago in Norway, where I gave my first performance of the Britten.  It was wonderful to work with him again and also great to have the opportunity to play such a fantastic modern violin concerto.  Straight after that was Dvorak with the LMP and Joseph Wolfe in Fairfield Hall in Croydon. The London Mozart Players and I go back a loooong way – in fact, we worked out that the Season after next will be our 20^th anniversary of collaborating, the realisation of  which,I think, made us all a bit surprised!  It’s really a bit crazy but wonderful and I look forward to many more years of music making with them!

So, I think that brings me pretty much up to date and brings the tally of concerti to 9 in the last few months!  For this season I just have Barber in Stavanger and Berg in Hamburg left.  Barber is a piece I always love doing and it will be nice to revisit it and the Berg, well… it will be great to do it in Hamburg, a city I have always loved, and with Matthias Bamert, who funnily enough, was the conductor who was present during my first encounter with LMP aged 5.

Right, I will stop now – hope to see some of you at a concert soon,

All Best, Chloe

Happy New Year everyone! I have finally got my act together to write the next blog  albeit slightly later than intended and am writing this on yet another airplane!

I think I’ll work backwards again…so, I’m on my way back from my first Concerto concert of the year – Bruch No 1 with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and Pedro Halffter.  Some of you may remember that I did a tour of the UK with the MSSO last year  -  it was so nice to see everyone again.  It was also very nice to have the opportunity to work with Maestro Halffter – all in all it was a very enjoyable concert and trip.  Before this concert I was in Birmingham for the CBSO’s New Year Concerts.  It was really wonderful to work with them and Roberto Minczuk, the conductor, for the first time. The programme was slightly unusual – Lehar Hungarian Fantasy and Kreisler pieces which are normally done with piano – but it was a lot of fun!

The weeks running up to Christmas were fairly quiet for once – just two concerts – one at the beautiful Royal Chelsea Hospital for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (for which I am musical Ambassador) and Beethoven with the RPO in Lowestoft.  Before that I had five concerts of the Walton Violin Concerto with the Tonkuenstler Orchestra in Austria and the wonderful Michail Jurowski.  We had three concerts in the beautiful Musikverein in Vienna, one in Grafenegg and one in St.Poelten.  As before, it was very enjoyable working with the orchestra and Maestro again but I have to say that I think that my first concerts in the Musikverein are jinxed! The reason?  Last time I played there (February 2009) my bridge collapsed in the final throes of the last movement and I had to almost literally throw my violin at the leader and grab his to finish the concerto on.  This time, my e-string decided it would be fun if it disappeared under(!) my fingerboard so what did I have to do? Yep, you guessed it, I had to grab the leaders violin and play on it until the end of that movement (many thanks to both leaders for letting me play on their violins!) For it to happen once is mildly amusing (and terrifying) but for it to happen twice?! Rather embarrassing…..

Before the Walton and Vienna I was in the States for a week, doing recitals in Kansas City, Missouri and Shreveport, Louisiana with my fantastic recital partner, Ashley Wass.  Both of these concerts were highly enjoyable – in Kansas City the hall was absolutely stunning with a wonderful acoustic and in Shreveport we performed in the Chapel of the Methodist Church, something which I love doing.  Kansas City itself was a very clean, quiet city but I didn’t see quite as much of Shreveport.  Whilst in Kansas City I also did a Masterclass. This is something that has been asked of me more and more over the last few years but I have always found it a rather daunting prospect.  I could never presume to know ‘how’ to teach but I do find myself enjoying it a little bit more each time I have an opportunity and have discovered that it also makes me more critical of myself (never a bad thing!)

Prior to this I had the concert in Besancon with Sir Andrew Davis and the RAI Orchestra (the orchestra of Italian Radio).  For this we were doing a modern piece called …prisme/incidences… and because of that I actually went to Turin a few days before in order to rehearse it.  Whilst there I had the very rare opportunity to see a little bit of the city and decided to take myself off to the Egyptian Museum.  This museum has to be one of the most amazing I have ever been to – the artefacts which they have there are breathtaking and one can almost feel the history.  The rehearsals and concert themselves were highly enjoyable and it was marvellous to have the opportunity to work with Maestro Davis and indeed the orchestra again.

I am now going to be working and starting on everything for the next few months which includes the Brett Dean Violin Concerto, Dvorak, Berg, Korngold and Barber to name but a few!!  So all that is left for me to say is thank you for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful year full of happiness and health!

Chloe

Greetings everyone, I hope you have all had a good summer?  I have had a crazily busy time this summer and am not entirely sure that I can give all of my travels full justice in just one blog post, but I will do my best!

I’ll work backwards, so as I write this I am sitting on a flight back from Zurich where I have just made my Tonhalle debut with my wonderful old teacher, Professor Zakhar Bron, and his newly formed Zakhar Bron Kammerorchester.  It was so great to see and work with Professor Bron again after 5 years and also to see all of my friends from the class as well!  Zurich is such a beautiful city, I always enjoy going there, and the Tonhalle is of course one of the most prestigious and famous concert halls in the world so all in all it was a great way to start this season off!

Before Zurich I had an interlude of a few weeks where I relaxed at my parents house, went for walks in the mountains and generally just didn’t touch the violin for a while!  It’s so important for  musicians to take time off occasionally and do something completely different!

My last trip and concerts before my holiday have to be alternately one of the strangest yet thrilling tours I have had the opportunity to go on!  This was my big tour to Azerbaijan with the RPO that I had been so looking forward to.  The RPO is such a fantastic orchestra, always so friendly and I always love working with them.  The trip started early in the morning at Harrods Aviation from where we took our charter flight to Baku with Azerbaijan Airlines.  When we arrived we were met by the wonderful Maestro Dmitry Yablonsky who helped to found the Gabala Festival where we were playing.  Having fully expected to be travelling with the orchestra in coaches for the 3 hour trip there, I discovered that a car had very kindly been arranged for me.  I didn’t know quite what to expect of the drive but dusk was just falling as we left Baku going towards the Caucasus Mountain range on what can be described only as an awe-inspiring mountain pass. The moon was red and the stars were twinkling as we drove higher and higher into the mountains.  I was very fortunate that my driver was sensible, but some of the driving was…well, let’s just say interesting!  We got rather lost I think (my driver didn’t speak any English so he couldn’t really communicate that to me!) but I eventually arrived at the Hotel at 12:30am.  Now, I really didn’t know what to expect of the Hotel, but we pulled up to this immense 5 star Hotel resort with amazing marble reception, huge chandeliers, swimming pool, large rooms – really very spectacular.

The next day was free for us all to acclimatise to the different time zone etc with the option of using the swimming pool and free bar or a trip to a historical city called Seki.  I decided to go on the excursion as I very rarely get to see anything of the countries that I travel to and it was also a real treat to not be travelling alone.  So we all piled into our coach (complete with Police and armed escort!) for the trip to Seki.  We got slightly stuck going up and down a road which caused  much hilarity but once we got there we went to explore.  First we went to the local museum which was full of stuffed animals, local silks, national dress and old cooking appliances.  After that we visited the Palace slightly further up the hill.  It was one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. Built with a mixture of wood and egg white (!) it took 2 years to build and a further 8 to paint and decorate.  To this day, 250 years later 80% of the paintings are original and have not been retouched. Once back at the Hotel I did some practice in preparation for the Opening Concert of the Festival the next day.

`This was a relatively easy first concert in that I was only playing Rondo Capriccioso which was nice and quite unusual.  There was a great reception back at the Hotel complete with band and the atmosphere was fantastic.  The next couple of days I had off although I did play in the orchestra for one of the concerts which was really fun and a pretty new experience for me!  My last concert was Mendelssohn which was highly enjoyable as always with the RPO.  Next day was the wonderful drive back to the airport in which I could actually really appreciate the scenery.  I was quite sad to leave the Festival and would just like to thank everyone at the RPO and at the Festival for such a great time!

Before that I had the privilege of playing Paganini Concerto with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta in Detroit in their Summer Concerts series.  The humidity was immense (almost 80%) and as always when I play Paganini there was a huge thunderstorm on the day but just as I went out on stage a beautiful rainbow appeared which was rather nice.

So, my apologies that this is such a long blog post but I have been to some pretty cool places in the last couple of months!  Now I am getting ready for Besancon Festival with RAI Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davis as well as recitals in the States so will keep you all updated on that as well!

Thank You again for reading the blog and hope to see some of you at a concert somewhere soon!

Chloe

P.S This blog post is going up quite a bit later than originally planned but another one will be up with news from my latest trips and concerts very soon!

Greetings everyone and welcome to my first blog post!

The last few months have been an absolute whirlwind of concerts, travelling and practising. It all started in London at the end of April, wondering whether or not I would be able to get to Moscow in time for my concerts due to the ash cloud… Having looked at all the various options (including train and car!) it was decided that I would just sit tight and wait and see what happened – in the event the Moscow flight was one of the first out of Heathrow and was met by Russian television!

Being in Moscow was amazing – I was there to rehearse and play with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra under their wonderful Maestro, Pavel Kogan, in preparation for our tour around the UK in May.  Now, playing Glass Violin Concerto is always fun, as is playing Tchaikovsky, but performing Tchaikovsky in Tchaikovsky Hall, in Russia and with Russian musicians is quite spectacular if not slightly terrifying! I also made myself go out and have a look around Moscow and went to Red Square and St Basil’s Cathedral – truly breathtaking!  The first concert on the tour here in the UK was in Birmingham Symphony Hall  – always love playing there – and took us to Basingstoke, Leeds, Warwick and Hull to name but a few places.

In the middle of the tour I played one of my all time favourite concerti, Prokofiev Concerto No 2, at the Royal Festival Hall with the RPO and Leonard Slatkin. It is such a great piece – so emotive – and it was wonderful to work with Maestro Slatkin again.  It was also wonderful as ever to work with the RPO  – I did my first concert with them when I was 14 and it always feels as if  I am playing with real friends when on stage.  I am really looking forward to going to Azerbaijan with them in a couple of weeks time!

After the tour I went to Murcia to play the gorgeous Beethoven Violin Concerto with the fantastic Murcia Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Valek.  As always, it was great to work with the orchestra and its management team.

Directly after that I went to the fantastic chamber music festival in Kutna Hora, CZ which has been founded by the wonderful cellist Jiri Barta.   It was a truly w week of music making and fun and just reconfirmed my love for what I do.  Last week I came back from Bonn after playing Tchaikovsky with the Beethovenorchester and the fantastic Stefan Blunier – so wonderful to work with and a real sense of enjoyment during the concert which is always good!  However, had one of the worst trips back ever thanks to bad weather and ended up flying back to Heathrow, not from Cologne as planned but via Cologne train station, a very fast taxi journey to Frankfurt Airport arriving at the gate in Frankfurt just 2 minutes before boarding started! Many thanks to Lufthansa though for facilitating all of the changes so quickly and efficiently!

So, I think that’s enough rambling from me for the time being.  I shall try to write with more regularity, and I might even work out how to post photos as well!

Many Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful few weeks!

Chloe

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