Cyprus Today

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exhilarating performances. Alongside them,
the Festival was thrilled to present the return
visit of the amazing Yevgeny Sudbin, hailed
by The Telegraph as ‘potentially one of the
greatest pianists of the 21st century’ and by the
International Record Review as ‘one of the most
important pianistic talents of our time’.
Besides the Festival’s regular guests –
distinguished cellist and artistic director of the
Festival Alexander Chaushian, Russian violinist
Boris Brovtsyn, violinists Levon Chilingirian
and Monika Urbonaite, violists Diemut Poppen
and David Abrahamyan, and cellist Tim Park –
this year’s Festival also hosted for the first time
the violinist Alena Baeva, who is fast emerging
as one of the finest violinists of her generation
having already carved out an impressive career
working as a soloist with some of the world’s
most important orchestras, as well as one of the
most engaging French violinists of our times –
Nicolas Dautricourt, who was voted “Classical
Discovery of the Year” at the Midem in Cannes
and awarded the Sacem Georges Enesco Prize.
It also included violinist Clara-Jumi Kang,
prize winner in several major competitions, and
violist Jennifer Stumm, recognised as one of
the world’s dynamic and creative advocates for
her instrument, whose TED talk “The Imperfect
Instrument” was named editor’s pick of all talks
on
The 17th International Pharos Chamber Music
Festival also welcomed the return visits of
French cellist Marc Coppey, who was discovered
by Lord Yehudi Menuhin at a very early age and
who is nowadays considered one of the leading
cellists in the world, the renowned Italian flutist
Massimo Mercelli, who is the dedicatee of
numerous works by some of the most important
contemporary composers, and the newly
founded Cyprus Guitar Trio, which comprises
three renowned classical guitarists from Cyprus
– Vasilios Avraam, George Christofi and
Socrates Leptos.
Diemut Poppen