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Lavard Skou-Larsen was born in Porto Alegre/Brazil. He first received violin lessons at the age of four from his father, Gunnar, and had extra tuition from Professor Ernst Moravec in Vienna. He was admitted to the Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Mozarteum in Salzburg aged fourteen to study with Prof. Dr. Helmut Zehetmair, and gained a performance diploma with distinction. He later completed a postgraduate diploma under Sandor Végh.
Lavard Skou-Larsen has won prizes both as soloist and as chamber musician, including the "Concertino Prague" and the "Sergio Lorenzi" in Triest. He was member of the Camerata Academica under Sandor Végh from 1983-86. He has been teaching violin at the Mozarteum/Salzburg since 1991, the same year he founded the Salzburg Chamber Soloists. |
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Lavard Skou-Larsen has been invited to perform with leading symphony and chamber orchestras in Europe and South America, as leader, concertmaster and conductor, including the European Union Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Deutsche Kammerakademe Neuss, Orchestra Internazionale d´Italia, Orchestre de Chambre de Geneve, Orchestra Sinfonica de Porto Alegre, and many others.
In 1997, he and the pianist Alexander Müllenbach released the first ever recordings of the Brazilian composer, Camargo M. Guarnieris complete violin sonatas for Marco Polo. Since 2004 he is acclaimed chief conductor of the "Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein".
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Violinist and conductor Joel Smirnoff made his European conducting debut in March 2000 when he led the Basel Sinfonietta in four concerts with Charles Rosen as soloist in the Elliot Carter Piano Concerto. In addition to his Grammy-nominated SONY recordings with the Juilliard String Quartet (where he has served as first violinist since 1997), he has an extensive catalogue of solo recordings, including world premiere recordings of numerous 20th century masterworks.
In November 2001 he led the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra in two concerts in Norway, where he replaced Christian Tetzlaff on three days' notice. He also led the Sinfonietta on a mini-tour of Basel, Winterthur, Zurich, and Zagreb. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Smirnoff conducted the San Francisco Symphony in an all-Tchaikovsky program. He conducts the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra annually and opened the 1998 Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert at Tanglewood in which he shared the program with Maestro Seiji Ozawa and Robert Spano. |
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In 1997 Mr. Smirnoff was featured violin soloist at Tanglewood in a performance of the Alban Berg Violin Concerto with conductor Bernard Haitink in a concert dedicated to the memory of violinist Louis Krasner. In 1983 he won second prize in the International American Music Competition for Violin in Carnegie Hall. Mr. Smirnoff subsequently was presented in debut by Carnegie Hall in its "Emerging Artists" series and by Town Hall in its "Midtown Masters" series. Also a fine jazz musician, Mr. Smirnoff appears regularly as guest soloist with Gunther Schuller and the American Jazz Orchestra and as a guest with New York's Sunset Serenaders. In the fall of 1999 Mr. Smirnoff was featured soloist on the Grammy award-winning CD, Tony Bennett Sings Ellington Hot and Cool. A member of the faculty of The Juilliard School since 1986, Mr. Smirnoff currently serves as chair of the violin department. |
