Yariv Aloni
MUSIC DIRECTOR
MUSIC DIRECTOR
2011-2012
Twenty-sixth Season
A Season of Symphonies
Conductors
Yariv Aloni
Music Director (Appointed 2010)
Associate Music Director (2002-2010)
János Sándor
Music Director (1996-2010)
Stuart Knussen
Founding Music Director (1986-1990)
Yariv Aloni, Music Director
“When the musicians are playing this well, the critic can pay attention to the interpretation and here Aloni pierced unerringly to the heart of the music.”
Deryk Barker, “Youth Orchestra Performs Brahms with Mastery,”
Victoria Times Colonist, Feb.14, 2005
Yariv Aloni has conducted orchestras across western Canada and has received praise for his impassioned and inspiring interpretations of major orchestral and choral repertoire.
Born on a kibbutz in Israel, Yariv Aloni began violin lessons at age eight. He studied viola with David Chen, Daniel Benyamini and Michael Tree, and his chamber music teachers included members of the Amadeus and Guarneri String Quartets. His conducting studies were under the mentorship of the late János Sándor.
As violist of the Aviv and Penderecki Quartets, Mr. Aloni performed in concert halls worldwide, including Lincoln Centre, the Louvre, and Tonhalle. In 1985 he was invited to join Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman in a gala concert at Carnegie Hall. He has recorded for the United, Marquise, Tritonus, and CBC labels. He appears regularly with Vancouver’s Vetta Ensemble and in solo and chamber music recitals. A dedicated teacher, Mr. Aloni has given master classes at universities across Canada. For ten years he was Artistic Director of the Comox Valley Youth Music Centre. He currently serves on the faculty of the University of Victoria.
Yariv Aloni is Artistic Director of the Galiano Ensemble and the Victoria Chamber Orchestra. A longtime GVYO coach, clinician and guest conductor, he became Associate Music Director in 2002, and was appointed GVYO Music Director in July 2010.
János Sándor, Music Director 1996-2010
“Sándor summoned forth from his players pure magic, from the hushed openings to the glowing climax. I was not surprised to find tears running down my cheeks.”
Deryk Barker, Victoria Times Colonist, April 19, 2004
Born in Hungary in 1933, János Sándor began his professional career at the age of 18, as principal timpanist and youngest member of the Hungarian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. He studied conducting at the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest, where he graduated with distinction, and in Siena (Italy) with renowned conductor Sergiu Celibidache. A prize-winner at the Besançon (France) International Conductors Competition, he conducted major orchestras across Europe and North America, making over 30 recordings. His recording for Hungaroton of Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin, Dance Suite and Hungarian Peasant Songs, qualified as one of "the best five recordings of the year" in Hi-Fi News, and was awarded the Arthur Honegger Prize of the Grand Prix Nationale du Disque. Possessor of an extraordinary gift for encouraging young people, he was a founder and regular conductor of Jeunesses Musicales in Hungary, and invited guest conductor at International Youth Orchestra Festivals in Switzerland, Scotland, and Canada, where he conducted the Gala concert of the inaugural Festival of Canadian Youth Orchestras in Banff in 1974, returning frequently for 15 years.
After moving to Canada in 1991, Mr. Sándor was guest conductor with the Victoria and Edmonton Symphonies, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, and the Sonor Ensemble of San Diego, and regularly returned to conduct in Europe. In 1995 he joined the University of Victoria as Artist-in-Residence, Music Director and Conductor of the UVic Orchestra and Chorus. He was appointed Music Director of the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra in 1996.
In his native Hungary, János Sándor was awarded the "Franz Liszt" prize, the title "Merited Artist of the Hungarian Republic", and "Honorary Life Member" of the Györ Philharmonic Orchestra, which he founded as a professional orchestra in 1968.
After his death in May 2010, the GVYO produced a Special Edition Society Newsletter - June 2010 with tributes to János Sándor.
The Twenty Fifth Anniversary Season of the GVYO was dedicated to the memory of János Sándor in gratitude for fifteen years of musical mentorship.
A short film excerpt showing János Sándor conducting his last rehearsal with the GVYO was
presented at his memorial service, and can be seen here: János in Rehearsal. This excerpt
was taken from Asterisk Productions' documentary film A Work in
Progress, commissioned by the GVYO to celebrate its 25th Anniversary Season.
A tribute to János by music reviewer Deryk Barker (Music in Victoria) can be read here.
A Work in Progress is available on DVD and can be
purchased through the GVYO office, as can the 2 CD set The János Years.
Stuart Knussen, Founding Music Director 1986-1990
Born in Manchester, UK, Stuart Knussen received his musical training in England, Hamburg, and Chicago. His career took him to every corner of the globe, as an orchestral player, solo performer, recording artist, conductor, and broadcaster. Mr. Knussen was a founding member of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the Fields, and was Principal Bass with the London Symphony Orchestra for nineteen years, including five years as Chairman of its Board of Directors. Following associations with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and the Canadian Association of Youth Orchestras at Banff, he moved to Victoria in 1983 where he taught at the Victoria Conservatory of Music and established the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra.
Stuart Knussen devoted his years in Victoria to young musicians, encouraging, challenging and counseling them in their musical development. He shared with them his own profound and passionate love of music, and his conviction of the whole-hearted commitment which music demands from those who would pursue the art. His vision for the GVYO continues to inspire the orchestra and its players to this day.
The players of the GVYO dedicated their concert on March 10, 1990 featuring Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony to Stuart – the man who brought them together and guided them in what for many of them was their first experience of symphonic music.
The following obituary, written by distinguished critic Edward Greenfield, appeared in the Manchester Guardian in January, 1990.
Player or
composer: the bass line counts
Stuart Knussen was one of the characters among orchestral players, a laconic sharp-spoken northerner
who behind a rugged exterior was an original and sensitive musician. As principal double-bass and
later chairman of the London Symphony Orchestra at a key period, he helped to consolidate –
along with his friend the horn-player, Barry Tuckwell, and others – a new generation of players
in London.
Tall and upstanding, with wavy red hair, he was a notable backrow forward of string players on a
concert platform. In 1965 a television film illustrated his life as an orchestral player. That
encouraged his son, Oliver, then a precocious 13, now celebrated both as a composer and conductor, to
write his First Symphony, and memorably at the age of 15 to conduct the LSO in its first performance.
Stuart Knussen was born in Manchester in December 1923. His father – also called Stuart –
was principal cello in the Hallé, his mother a professional singer. From an early age the boy
was able to attend Hallé rehearsals under Sir Hamilton Harty, and that nurtured his passion
for Berlioz.
Knussen’s parents did not want him to become a musician, but he insisted on teaching himself
the double-bass. He developed his own system of fingering based on that of the cello, a technique
that has influenced many players since. Latterly, rejecting orchestral routine, he turned to
teaching, mainly working in the United States and Canada.
He first joined the Hallé as a player in 1945 under Sir John Barbirolli. But then, never one
to settle for long, Knussen went off to America to study further, and to gain more playing experience
– and find his wife, Jane. He joined the LSO in 1958, but also worked with the English Chamber
Orchestra for Benjamin Britten at the Aldeburgh Festival. It was Knussen who first played the
double-bass part in Britten’s church-parable, Curlew River. Oliver Knussen remembers how
through the 1950s and 1960s the family was in regular contact both with Britten and with another hero
of his father’s, Leopold Stokowski. Knussen’s period with the LSO spanned the end of
Pierre Monteux’s conductorship, the brief reign of Istvan Kertesz and the first years of
André Previn as principal conductor. But then in 1972, with his son an established composer,
Knussen decided to go to America.
For a season he managed the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, but then concentrated on teaching and
encouraging what became a great enthusiasm with him, the development of community orchestras. In this
capacity he worked at the Conservatory in Victoria, British Columbia, where he died.
Vladimir Ashkenazy, in a recent letter to Olivier Knussen after conducting his Third Symphony in
Moscow, asked to be remembered to “the greatest double-bass player in the world”.
Edward
Greenfield - Stuart Knussen born
December 7, 1923; died January 1, 1990.