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 Pianist
Jura Margulis has been recognized for his compellingly communicative
performances, as well as for the range of his tonal palette and his
consummate virtuosity. Reviewers have praised the “absolute
authority” of his interpretations and the sense of
“controlled obsession” he transmits at the keyboard (Fono
Forum). The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted that his
aesthetic is both “impulsive and contemplative.” The Los
Angeles Times praised his “excellent pianism” and called
him “highly musical”. The Washington Post applauded his
“titanic reserves of sheer power” and his “effortless
spontaneity.” The Fort Worth Star-Telegram called his
performance “ … the perfect Beethoven for the audience of
our time … sweeping lyricism … imagination, originality,
and good taste pervaded every phrase.”
His orchestral appearances
include performances with the Russian National Orchestra at the
Hollywood Bowl, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit,
the Südwestrundfunk Orchestra, the National Orchestra of
Venezuela, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. He has played in numerous
festivals, including the Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival, the
Berliner Festwochen at Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the Internationale
Sommerakademie Mozarteum in Austria, the Verbier Festival in
Switzerland, and the Argerich-Beppu Music Festival in Japan. He has won
prizes in more than a dozen international competitions, including
Busoni in Italy and Guardian in Ireland. He is also a recipient of the
esteemed Pro Europa prize awarded by the European Foundation for
Culture.
Recent
years have brought him to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis,
Dallas, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Little Rock, Tulsa, Carmel, Austin,
Phoenix, San Jose, Minneapolis, Memphis, and New Orleans in the US, as
well as abroad to Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin,
Tübingen, Freiburg, Bologna, Salzburg, Barcelona, Lugano,
Crams-Montana, Sapporo, and Bangkok. Active as a chamber musician,
Margulis has performed recitals with, among others, Dmitry Sitkovetsky,
the soloists of the Moscow Virtuosi, members of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, and the Moscow String Quartet. He has also concertized with
Martha Argerich on two pianos in Germany, Japan, and the USA.
Margulis
has recorded seven CDs for Sony, Ars Musici, and Oehms Classics,
covering a wide spectrum of repertoire. These recordings have attracted
substantial attention, including selection as a “reference
recording” by Fono Forum, and inclusion on the
“Bestenliste” of the Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (the
German Recording Review). His CD featuring piano transcriptions of
music from Bach to Caplet (2007), received 10 out of 10 for
“artistic quality” from KlassikHeute. The accompanying
review applauded his “ability to structure the Bach Chaconne, to
build momentum and at the right moment to gently abate … not
since Horowitz’s old RCA recording have I encountered a
performance of Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre that so grippingly
leaps from the stage, as here in Jura Margulis’ own
transcription.” The review also noted that Margulis’ own
transcription of a little-known piece by André Caplet
“should, like Ravel’s own transcription of his La Valse,
claim a place in the repertoire of young pianists.” Klassik.com,
also giving the CD its highest rating, raved that Margulis
“cannot be praised enough.” Margulis’ latest CD was
released in fall of 2009; “This CD is one of the best played,
best interpreted, best programmed recitals of piano music of the
year,” writes All Music Guide.
Margulis is a third generation
pianist and teacher and piano pedagogy is an integral part of his
artistic vision. His yearly master classes in the US and abroad,
including courses in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia,
Austria, Russia, and Japan, center around his pedagogical concept: The
Unified Piano School, A synthesis of piano pedagogy and performance
traditions, which bridges the Russian School's concentration on sound,
imagination, and physical technique, and the German School's focus on
structure, rhythmic coherence, and style. He has lectured on this
concept at numerous forums including the World Piano Pedagogy
Conference. Margulis is the executive director of the
International Piano Academy, a summer master class and music festival
in Freiburg, Germany, and artistic director of the Fulbright Concerto
Competition, an international piano contest in Fayetteville, AR.
Born in St. Petersburg,
Russia, Jura Margulis was raised in Germany, where he studied with his
father, Dr. Vitaly Margulis, at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg.
He was also a student at the prestigious Fondazione per il Pianoforte
in Cadenabbia at Lake Como in Italy. He moved to the United States to
study with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and
made the US his home. Margulis is the inaugural holder of the
"Emily J. McAllister Endowed Professorship in Piano" at the University
of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
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