THE BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY NORTHERN IRELAND Season 1964-65 A SERIES OF SEVEN RECITALS IN THE SIR WILLIAM WHITLA HALL (UNDER THE AUSPICES OF QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY) at 7.45 p.m. SUBSCRIPTION 40/-

Wednesday October 7th 1964 ANNUAL MEETING AND FILM SHOW A feature film in colour on Opera at Glyndbourne will be shown after the business of the Annual Meeting has been concluded. Tuesday November 3rd 1964 LILI KRAUS (Piano) Hungarian-born, Lili Kraus began her musical training at the age of six at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest and, when she was 20, became professor of piano at the Vienna Conserva- torium. Her teachers included Zoltan Kodaly, Bela Bartok and Artur Schnabel. On a world tour in 1940, she was imprisoned with her husband and children by the Japanese. Immediately after liberation the family was flown to New Zealand and Lili Kraus subsequently became a naturalised New Zealander. Always a favourite with the British public, Madame Kraus has a huge following on the Continent and pays annual visits to the United States. In recent years highlights of her busy career have been a Royal Command performance after the wedding banquet of the Shah of Persia, a series of concerts in the Royal Moroccan Mozart Festival, the first recital in the new city of Brasilia, adjud- ication at the Van Cliburn international piano competition in Texas, and performances with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Her services for concertos, recitals, recordings, master classes and lectures are in demand all over the world. Thursday December 3rd 1964 THE ALBENERI TRIO GABRIEL BANAT (Violin) BENAR HEIFETZ (Cello) ARTUR BALSAM (Piano) Founded in 1950, The Albeneri Trio has been acclaimed for a per- fection of ensemble, beauty of tone and stylistic brilliance com- parable to that achieved by the legendary Cortot-Thibaud-Casals Trio. The members have all achieved distinction as soloists on the international concert platform. Artur Balsam is internationally known both for his solo work and also for performances with such celebrated chamber ensembles as the Budapest, Kroll, Vegh and Pascal quartets and the Pasquier Trio. Gabriel Banat, a protégé of Bela Bartok, graduated with dis- tinction at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music. He has since studied under Georges Enesco and Nathan Milstein, and his recent concert tours have established him in the first rank of young American violinists. Benar Heifetz studied the 'cello in Moscow and Leipzig and was one of the founder members of the Kolisch Quartet. He became solo 'cellist with the NBC Symphony Orchestra when it was founded by Toscanini in 1937 and now teaches at the Julliard School of Music in New York.

Tuesday January 19th 1965 THE SMETANA STRING QUARTET JIRI NOVAK (Violin) MILAN SKAMPA (Violin) LUBOMIR KOSTECKY (Violin) ANTONIK KOHOUT (Cello) The members of the Smetana Quartet are all graduates of the Prague Conservatoire and Prague Academy of Music. In 1943 while still students they first played under the name of the "Quartet of the Prague Conservatoire", and the name Smetana Quartet was first adopted in 1945. In 1951 the Smetana Quartet became affiliated with the Czech Philharmonic in Prague, and in 1954 they were granted the Czech State Prize for outstanding achievements in the field of Art. In recognition of their inter- national reputation, the Smetana Quartet had the honour of per- forming at the Festival in Vienna celebrating Mozart's 200th Anniversary, and they were the only Quartet invited to perform at the 20th Beethoven Festival at Bonn. During their visit to Belfast they will be playing works by both Mozart and Beethoven. Thursday February 4th 1965 THE WARSAW PIANO QUINTET (Violin) (Violin) (Viola) (Cello) (Piano) BRONISLAW GIMPEL TADEUSZ WRONSKI STEFAN KAMASA ALEKSANDER CIECHANSKI WLADYSLAW SZPILMAN Formed recently by the Polish violinist, Bronislaw Gimpel, its leader, the Warsaw Quintet has already proved itself to be a formidable entrant to the international concert scene. Bronislaw Gimpel studied in Poland at Lwow Conservatoire, and under Professor Pollack in Vienna, and at the age of 14 played in a famous Vienna orchestra. After the war he performed extensively in America, but since 1959 he has been Professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, and has worked mainly in Europe. At its first British concert in the Wigmore Hall in 1963 critics were unanimous in praising this impressive assembly of talent for their mpeccable intonation and maturity of approach.

Friday February 19th 1965 IGOR OISTRAKH (Violin) VSEVOLOD PETRUSHANSKY (Piano) Igor Oistrakh was born in 1931 in Odessa in the Ukraine. At the age of six Igor's talent for the violin became apparent and he underwent further tuition under Professor Pyotr Stoliarsky, who was also the renowned teacher of his father, David Oistrakh. In 1945 he entered the Tchaikowsky State Conservatoire in Moscow, and a further extensive training followed under his father's guidance. When he appeared in public Igor Oistrakh was acclaimed as a prodigy; he won the First Prize at the Inter- national Vieniawski Competition in Posnan (Poland) and also the First Prize at the International Festival at Budapest. Since 1952 he has appeared in concerts throughout the USSR as well as on the Continent and in America, and he has recently returned from a highly successful tour of Australia and New Zealand. In 1953. and 1957 his London appearances were acclaimed by enthusiastic audiences and he was warmly praised by the Press. He is accom- panied by Vsevolod Petrushansky.

Friday March 5th 1965 VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY (Piano) Vladimir Ashkenazy was born in 1938 into a family of musicians. In 1945 he entered the Central Musical School and joined the class of the experienced teacher A. S. Sumbatyan, who in the course of the next ten years further developed his exceptional gifts. At the age of seven Ashkenazy had his first triumph, per- forming the Haydn Piano Concerto with an expressiveness and character remarkable for his years. In his final year at Music School he gained a prize at the Inter- national Chopin Competition in Warsaw, competing against pianists from 33 European countries. In 1956 he became Gold Medallist of the Queen Elizabeth International Competition held in Brussels, performing before a jury which included such world-famous pianists as Brailowsky and Gilels. More recently, in 1962 in Moscow he was joint winner with John Ogdon of the Tchaikowsky Competition.