Axel Strauss

(NEW LEBANON, N.Y.) – Violinist Axel Strauss and pianist Ilya Poletaev will perform works by Mozart, Schumann, and Prokofiev, plus Enescu’s Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Opus 25, at Tannery Pond Concerts at the Darrow School on Saturday, June 21, 2014, at 8pm.

In 1998, violinist Axel Strauss became the first German artist ever to win the Naumburg Violin Award. Strauss has been residing in the United States since 1996 when he began working with Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School and became her teaching assistant in 1998. He has been heard on concert stages throughout Europe since his recital debut in Hamburg at the age of sixteen. One year after his debut he won the silver medal at the Enescu Competition in Romania. He has also appeared as guest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Formerly, a Professor of Violin & Chamber Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music he currently is a professor at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal.

Ilya Poletaev

Ilya Poletaev began studying in Moscow at the age of six and continued his studies in Israel until he moved to Canada at the age of 14. Poletaev leads a multifaceted career as both a classically trained pianist and as a performer on early keyboards. From 2005–2010 he served on the faculties of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, the Yale Department of Music, and the Yale School of Music, as a lecturer in Early Music. In 2011, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University where he resides today. His two-volume recording of the complete works of George Enescu for violin and piano, with violinist Axel Strauss, will soon be released on the Naxos label.