ACCLAIMED: British violinist Jack Liebeck is in town for two concerts. ACCLAIMED: British violinist Jack Liebeck is in town for two concerts.
Christina McEwan
ZIPPING in and out of cities is the rule of thumb, says Jack Liebeck, the young British violinist who will be in Cape Town for one week to rehearse and perform with the Cape Town Philharmonic in its 10th Cape Town International Summer Music Festival, supported by the City of Cape Town, and in recital for the Cape Town Concert Series.
This is because the compelling and busy violinist is also a professor and he takes his teaching responsibilities very seriously.
“I have five students at the Royal Academy of Music in London who need regular lessons, roughly seven hours a week and, while I have been forced to teach via Skype when I was in Australia, I prefer not to.”
So he doesn’t usually get much time to see the city he is playing in, except that in this case he has been here before. In fact, his parents were both born here, leaving in 1973 for London, so he feels a sort of kinship for Cape Town.
“My grandparents were war immigrants, so my parents were first-generation South Africans. My mom’s family had links to the diamond trade both here and in Amsterdam.
“I haven’t any family left Cape Town, but they do visit often. I have been about three times, once for two days at the end of a music cruise from Southampton and another a recent week long holiday with my parents, so I know how a little bit about the city.”
Although his father is a great cricket fan, telling him on the trip back here where he played cricket (tennis, rugby and soccer) as a young man, Liebeck won’t be going to the 20/20 on the Friday between his concerts – that time will be spent rehearsing for the recital.
Born in London in 1980, Liebeck studied at the Royal Academy before making a name for himself both in the UK and abroad.
His recital debut at the Wigmore Hall in 2002 was both acclaimed and sold out, and he has just made his New York recital debut – on February 7 – at the Lincoln Centre just before arriving here and shortly after that a concert in San Sebastian in Spain.
As a soloist, he has appeared with all the major British orchestras, and also with many abroad from Scandinavia to Moscow, America and Australia.
As a chamber musician (and heard on the soundtrack of several films such as Jane Eyre and Anna Karenina), Liebeck is in demand as a soloist and with his trio, Trio Dali,with Amandine Savary and Christian-Pierre La Marca, and also in duo with Savary.
While the Trio was formed in 2007, he only joined it three years ago.
“It had a great name before I joined, and hopefully still a good one now,” he says with charming humility.
And yes, it still has a very great reputation today. He has also collaborates with pianists Katya Apekisheva, Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Angela Hewitt and Piers Lane and with Renaud and Gautier Capuçon at some of the best festivals in Bath, Aldeburgh, Montpellier, Montreux, Reims, Spoleto and of course the City of London.
He is also artistic director of Oxford May Music Festival, a festival of music, science and the arts.
He plays maybe 20 trio concerts a year plus his recitals and orchestral appearances – he played at last year’s BBC Proms, for instance – and there are many more festival appearances on the horizon.
Liebeck returns to London to run a Kreisler Festival with master classes and concerts, various recitals and a festival in Australia, before returning to Australia with Trio Dali for a concert tour there.
“Amandine and I have known each other since we were first students at the Royal Academy. We realised when we started our Trio Dali discussions three years ago that we knew each other by sight, but she was one of the cool French kids in our student days. She’s still cool but now she’s a friend.
“She lives in Paris and instead of my visiting her to practice often we can rehearse together in London because she was recently also appointed to the Academy faculty and so comes over once a week.”
Liebeck has released several CDs, two critically acclaimed discs for Sony Classical (Dvorak, awarded a 2010 Classical Brit Award and Brahms Sonata’s with pianist Katya Apekisheva) and has just started a new recording relationship with Hyperion Records.
His latest CDs include the music of Fritz Kreisler and recordings of Bruch’s music for violin and orchestra.
At his concert with the CPO on February 18 at the City Hall, he will play the Bruch G minor Violin Concerto, on his ‘Ex-Wilhelmj’ J.B. Guadagnini dated 1785.
On the podium will be Victor Yampolsky, who will direct the CPO in Don Juan, the tone poem by Richard Strauss, and the Brahms Symphony no 4 in G. For the Cape Town Concert Series recital on February 20, at the Baxter Concert Hall, Liebeck and Savary will play sonatas by Debussy, Beethoven (in F, Spring) and Brahms (no 3 in D minor) and Two pieces by Lalo – Romance, Serenade and Guitare.
l Both concerts start at 8pm. Book: Computicket at 0861 915 8000, or Artscape Dial-A-Seat on 021 421 7695.