About The Artists

2021 2 Herscovitch Bio 250w 350h

 

Daniel Herscovitch, Piano

Daniel Herscovitch studied with Alexander Sverjensky at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Rosl Schmid in Munich. While based in Germany he performed extensively on the continent and in England and toured Australia three times.  He also appeared at several international festivals including the Berlin Festival, the Zagreb Biennale and the Saarbrücken Tage der Neuen Musik.

Since returning to Australia he has been active in solo and chamber music, and has appeared at the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the New Directions Festival and the Festivals of Melbourne and Sydney. He was a regular guest artist at Roger Woodward’s Sydney Spring Festival and toured for Musica Viva and in New Zealand. He has appeared with Synergy, Flederman, the Song Company and the Australia Ensemble and has toured with The Seymour Group. He was a soloist in the first Australian performance of the Bartók Concerto for Two Pianos. He has appeared in concert with Jane Manning, Wanda Wilkomirska, Bernadette Harvey, Michael Kieran Harvey, Geoffrey Gartner, Carl Vine and Ole Böhn. Ten years ago he formed a piano duo with Clemens Leske.

He has toured the USA four times, most recently performing Bach’s Art of Fugue as well as lecturing, conducting masterclasses and seminars. He visits Indonesia annually and his fifth European tour last year took him to Singapore, the UK, Norway and Germany and included a residency at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

His solo repertoire ranges from Purcell to Carter and beyond, and includes contemporary Australian, Asian, European and American works, several of which he commissioned and premiered. He has also lectured and presented papers in Australia and Europe on ornamentation in Bach, Bach’s Art of Fugue, ornamentation in Beethoven, and on practice methods, and he is sought after as guest lecturer on subjects ranging from baroque performance to Bartók. 

His recordings of repertoire from the 17th to the 21st centuries have been released on Tall Poppies, Toccata Classics, CSM, Continuum,  Biodiversity, Wirripang and ABC Classics labels. His CD of music by Roger Smalley was recently released on the British label Toccata Classics and was Editor’s Choice in the October 2019 issue of Gramophone. Further CDs of music by Don Banks and Peter Dart are scheduled for release next year. He is currently Associate Professor of Piano at The University of Sydney Conservatorium of Music. 

 2021 2 Leske Bio 250w 350h

 

Clemens Leske, Piano

Clemens Leske has performed with the six Australian symphony orchestras and played at venues in Spain, the UK, Singapore, New Zealand, the US, Hungary and China. He has appeared regularly with the Australian String Quartet, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Offspring, the Moscow Virtuosi and at the Bang on a Can and Focus festivals of new music in New York City. For his London Royal Festival Hall debut he performed Rachmaninoff’s First Piano Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent appearances include performances of Mozart’s K413 concerto, Strauss’ Burlesque and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and a national tour in partnership with flautist Sir James Galway.

Four CDs of solo piano works ranging from Chopin and Schumann to Kurtag and Duckworth will be released in 2021. He very much enjoys his work in teaching and research at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as well as relishing the sumptuous opportunities to perform the greatest chamber music with this country’s finest artists as principal pianist of the Omega Ensemble. He has enjoyed a two piano collaboration with Mr Daniel Herscovitch for a decade.

Vladimir Ashkenazy states: “Mr Clemens Leske is in my opinion an extraordinary musician and pianist.”

Musical inspirations include Erroll Garner, Sviatoslav Richter and his mother and father.