Kettering Concerts

Kettering Concert 2011-03-06

Violin and Piano Duo
Ronald Woodcock (violin), Leon Stemler (piano)

Music in March

Programme:

Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 100 – Thun – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Irkanda I for Violin Alone – Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (1929-2014)
Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Sunday 6 March 2011, 3pm
Kettering Community Hall
Tickets available at the door
$7.50
Stay for the post-concert afternoon tea, meet and chat with the musicians.

Ronald Woodcock

Ronald Woodcock has toured in 95 countries during a distinguished career as concerto and recital soloist, chamber player, teacher and orchestral conductor. He has performed in world musical centres such as London, Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Budapest, Lisbon, Brussels and Buenos Aires.

In remote countries such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Peru, the Solomon Islands, Bhutan and St. Helena Island, he has introduced audiences to Western classical music, often for the first time.

He has brought to a lifetime of performing the works of composers from Bach to Penderecki and beyond, a wealth of musical experience gained first from his teachers Arthur Grumiaux and Pablo Casals in Europe and then from orchestral playing in the Philharmonia, BBC and Royal Philharmonic orchestras under conductors such as Karajan, Klemperer, Ormandy, Beecham and Goossens.

His wide-ranging repertoire encompasses all the mainstream violin concertos and sonatas while also including the avant-garde and virtuoso showpieces.

Since early retirement from the University of Adelaide, where he was for twenty years Associate Professor of Violin, he now tours internationally giving recitals, concerto performances, TV and radio recordings, violin masterclasses and workshops and also adjudicating at national concerto competitions and eisteddfods.

Leon Stemler

After an earlier professional dalliance with science (including some years as Patent Examiner), Leon Stemler was finally enabled to indulge his artistic passions when, in the early 1970s, he was invited by strings doyen Jan Sedivka to join the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music. He there held the position of Staff Accompanist and Lecturer in Accompanist Studies until pseudo-retirement in the 90s. Throughout that period, and beyond, he not only contributed to the accompaniment needs of innumerable students, but also participated in many recitals and broadcasts with a variety of local and visiting artists, including Christian Wojtowicz, Keith Crellin, Tor Fromyhr, Gwyn Roberts, Margaret Blades, Alison Lazaroff, Janis Laurs and, of course, Ronald Woodcock. He is married to violinist Lyndal Edmiston.