Artist Biographies
David Robertson
David Robertson is Music Director of the Saint Louis Symphony and Principal Guest Conductor of London’s BBC Symphony Orchestra. Born in Santa Monica, he was educated at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he studied horn and composition before turning to conducting. Over the past two decades, he has held several posts abroad: He has been music director of the Orchestre National de Lyon and artistic director of that city’s Auditorium—the first time an artist has held both musical posts in Lyon; music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris; and resident conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony. Mr. Robertson made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony in 1997, and has appeared with the Symphony numerous times since then, including the 2005 world premiere of John Thow’s Bellini Sky. Mr. Robertson’s most recent appearance with the SFS was in February 2009, when he led music by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Scriabin.
David Robertson’s 2009-10 season includes a fall tour to Carnegie Hall with the Saint Louis Symphony, as well as guest conducting engagements with the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. Internationally, he returns to conduct the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Berlin Philharmonic, among others. This past season, Mr. Robertson presented the US premieres of works by HK Gruber, Steven Mackey, Kaija Saariaho, and Mark-Anthony Turnage, all with the Saint Louis Symphony. In February 2009, Mr. Robertson also conducted the Juilliard Orchestra in the inaugural concert of the Alice Tully Hall Opening Nights Festival in New York.
David Robertson has devoted time throughout his career to working with students and young artists, and he led a weeklong professional training workshop as part of his 2005-06 involvement with the Carnegie Hall Perspectives series. In 1997, Mr. Robertson received the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award; he was named 2000 Conductor of the Year by Musical America, and he and the Saint Louis Symphony received the ASCAP Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming for the 2005-06 season. Mr. Robertson has made numerous recordings, which include works by Adams, Bartók, Boulez, Carter, Dusapin, Ginastera, Lalo, Milhaud, Reich, Saint-Saëns, and Silvestrov. His most recent recording is of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony, released on Nonesuch Records in July 2009.
Yefim Bronfman
Yefim Bronfman was born in Tashkent, in the Soviet Union, in 1958. He emigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, studying there with Arie Vardi, and two years later he made his international debut with Zubin Mehta and the Montreal Symphony. He made his New York Philharmonic debut in 1978, his Washington recital debut at the Kennedy Center in 1981, and his New York recital debut at the 92nd Street Y in 1982. Mr. Bronfman’s first appearance with the San Francisco Symphony was in 1981 and he returned most recently in June 2009, when he performed Berg’s Piano Sonata as part of the SFS’s Schubert/Berg Festival.
Mr. Bronfman’s 2009-10 season includes North American performances with the Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Cleveland orchestras. In addition, he will perform with the New York Philharmonic and join them on a European tour during the winter of 2010. Mr. Bronfman will also give recitals in Japan, and concerts in Rome, Vienna, Warsaw, and various North American cities, culminating in a Carnegie Hall appearance in a duo recital with Magdalena Kozena.
As an On Location Artist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 2008-09 season, Yefim Bronfman appeared in orchestral and chamber music performances, and toured the Far East. Other season highlights included a duo recital tour with Emanuel Ax, with performances at Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Los Angeles's Disney Hall, and Carnegie Hall, and a solo recital tour across the US. In Europe, he appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic (at the Salzburg Festival), and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Mr. Bronfman also appeared as a featured guest with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle at their annual outdoor summer concert at Waldbühne.
Yefim Bronfman has recorded the complete Prokofiev piano sonatas and concertos, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3. With Isaac Stern he has recorded the Brahms Violin Sonatas, the Mozart Sonatas for Violin and Piano, and the Bartók Violin Sonatas. In 2002, Sony Classical released a recording of his two-piano recital with Emanuel Ax of works by Rachmaninoff, followed in 2005 by their recording of Brahms works. Mr. Bronfman's most recent releases are Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; a recital disc, Perspectives, which complements his 2007-08 Carnegie Hall “Perspectives” artist appointment; and the Beethoven Triple Concerto, with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk, and the Tonhalle Orchestra.