Biography
Praised for their "lyric sensitivity, extraordinary inner perception and overwhelming technical mastering" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), the Berlin based Silver-Garburg Piano Duo enjoys a flourishing international career, performing in more than sixty countries on five continents.
Their numerous concerts have taken them to prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Sydney Opera House and and many of Europe's most prestigious concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Berlin and Essen Philharmonie and Munich’s Hercules Hall. They perform at festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Israel Festival, Kremlin Festival, Niedersächsische Musiktage, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, Passau European Music-Weeks, Audi’s Sommerkonzerte, International Keyboard Institute Festival in New York and many others. They were Artists in Residence at the Canberra Chamber Music Festival and are the artistic directors of the Braunlager Maikonzerte in Germany.
Engagements include tours with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and Alexander Liebreich culminating in Vienna’s Musikverein, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Melbourne Symphony, Berlin Symphony, WDR Rundfunk Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic, and many others. They made their orchestral debut in New Zealand and Italy (Mantua Chamber Orchestra) and returned a couple of times to Latin America, East Asia and Australia to perform with all major orchestras.
In 2014, the Graz University for the Arts unanimously chose the Silver-Garburg Duo to occupy one of the few extant professorships for piano duo. Previously, they taught at the Hannover Conservatory, the elite German piano school at which they themselves completed their studies in 2007 under Arie Vardi.
June 2015 saw the release of their most recent recording on the label of their new exclusive partner, Berlin Classics: Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Rite of Spring for four hands. An additional CD will be dedicated to the last works of Schubert.
In 2009 their first CD was released with the Mendelssohn concerti for two pianos with the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie under Christopher Hogwood. A year later their second CD was released including Mendelssohn's version for piano four hands of his Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Following their debut CD, The Rondo Magazin wrote: „Man war mit dem ungeheuer flinken und gewandten israelischen Klavierduo Sivan Silver und Gil Garburg für diese Produktion sicher allerbestens bedient: Überaus frisch und lebendig, dazu hervorragend durchstrukturiert und im Detail aufeinander abgestimmt musizieren die beiden diese sprühende und funkelnde Musik… Kein Freund der Klaviermusik sollte diese brillante Aufnahme sich entgehen lassen.“ The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: „Mehr als nur überzeugend. In Vergleich mit anderen Klavierduos findet man hier ein außergewöhnlich musikantisch inspiriertes Klavier-Paar, das Partitur höchst spannend gestaltet und ihr unerwarteten Glanz verleiht.“ The recording received the Supersonic Award from the Pizzicato Magazin.
Reviews
An orchestral sound
Piano duo Silver-Garburg in Parktheater Augsburg, 28th January 2013
The concert given by the piano duo Silver and Garburg would certainly have scored full marks if seen as a pantomime performance. Body language strongly underlined their piano playing making it sometimes difficult to see which hand belonged to whom. A sitting ballet transformed into colourful and supple music and leaving an almost orchestral sound behind.
In Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream we heard the light tones of violins and flutes and the low tones of horns; in the Wedding March the typical tutti and in overture and finale the Wagner preceding woodwind and brass intervals. Tempo and virtuosity breathtaking, e.g. in Stravinky's Petrouchka. Faultless artistry.
Silver-Garburg's fourhanded piano playing rises above precision and consonance in its movements, empathy and emotions. They are a married couple which may contribute to their musical closeness and they formed their duo in 1997 in Israel. They have won more than a dozen national and international prizes since then.
The Parktheater concert was started with a curiosity as it was Mozart's birthday. Silver-Garburg played Liszt's arrangement of "Der, welcher wandert" from the Magic Flute, a march with a sighing motive at a moment of trial of the royal couple. It is interesting that the restless wanderer Liszt chose this part for adaptation.
Stephanie Knauer
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