‘Dark Velvet’ for Julia Hartig

The concert by Julia Hartig will be held in the Svilara Cultural Station on 10 June at 8 p.m., as part of the Heroines programme arch.

Julia Hartig is a violinist who has been connected to music and composition from an early age on, thanks to the fact that her father was a cellist and a composer, and who himself experienced the creative process and very close collaboration in writing pieces for violin. Several pieces were written or arranged for his daughter Julia.

My wish was to make most of them a part of the – CD ‘Dark Velvet’ and in that way present them to the world, ‘give them life’, so they would be heard and get a chance to be recognised as part of a violin repertoire.

This CD can be seen as an autobiographical story. It is a reflection of my Yugoslav and Dutch identity described in 10 pieces by 8 composers. All of these pieces have their unique musical language and way of expressing thoughts and feelings. From pure honest most tender love to the unearthly sounds in search of answers. Some of them speak about deep sorrow of loss, passionate greed for love and life, brutally distorted decomposed beauty or simply pure wild untamed joy. One thing that is common to all of them is that they were written or arranged for Julia with a deep understanding of my way of playing, which is always intense, honest and expressive.

The concert will feature world premieres:

Aleksandra Vrebalov: ‘Constellation Hartig’ for violin and prepared piano (2021)

Veljko Nenadić: ‘Air & Riffs’ Diptych for violin and piano (2022)

Florian Magnus Maier: ‘The Music of Erich Zann’ for solo violin (2022)

The ‘Heroines’ programme arch is sponsored by Erste Bank.

Photo: Juan Carlos Villarroel