Daughter conducts violinist mom with Hungarian orchestra

By Eileen Wingard

SAN DIEGO — This MSR recording is the first time in the annals of classical music that a violin soloist has been accompanied by her own conductor daughter!

My sister, violinist Zina Schiff, my niece, conductor Avlana Eisenberg, and Hungary’s MAV Symphony Orchestra are featured in this mother-daughter collaboration: Sibelius Violin Concerto, Barber Violin Concerto, Ben-Haim Three Songs Without Words..  Gramophone Magazine described how the “mother and daughter partnership shows evident unity of purpose….intense passionate feeling.”

Avlana Eisenberg, is the Music Director of the Boston Chamber Symphony and has guest conducted in Europe and in the United States. Trained as a violinist, Avlana was drawn to conducting during her years at Yale University and founded the Silliman Symphony. After graduation, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Paris, where she worked with James Conlon at the Paris National Opera. She went on to earn a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Institute and a Masters’ Degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Michigan.

Zina first became acquainted with Hungary’s MAV Orchestra when she was invited to solo with them at the 1999 Budapest Spring Festival. The performance took place at the newly renovated Dohany Synagogue, Europe’s largest. All 3000 seats were filled with enthusiastic listeners, my husband, Hal, and I among them. We attended the concert with our long-time friend, Bob Landen, whom we first met when he was the Foreign Language Specialist for the San Diego County Schools. Bob was living in Budapest, arranging designer tours and he was responsible for recommending Zina to the Festival Director. We were also joined by two other friends from San Diego, Kathy Rosznyai, daughter of Zoltan Rosznayai, Hungarian music director of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra when I first joined; and Georgy Eros, former wife of Peter Eros, the Hungarian conductor who followed Rozsnyai.

I recall Zina’s first performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, with the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in UCLA’s Royce Hall. That appearance was the result of her winning the YMF competition. I was present at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion when the great cellist, Gregor Piatigorsky, awarded Zina YMF’s first prize.

The three selections on this CD are Zina’s signature pieces which she has soloed in performances throughout this country and abroad, including in San Diego. When she played the Sibelius Concerto with the La Jolla Orchestra on Professor Joseph Nagyvary’s experimental violin, her performance was filmed for the NOVA segment, “What Is Music? “(see The music of the Nagyvary and Stradivari violins June 10, 2020). Jan Sibelius (1865-1957) is recognized as Finland’s greatest composer.

In San Diego, Zina played the Barber Violin Concerto with both the Sinfonia of San Diego at the Spreckles Theater, John Garvey, conductor; and with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Yoav Talmi, conductor. She had the pleasure of meeting the great American composer, Samuel Barber (1910-1981), while she was a student at the Curtis Institute.

Local audiences also heard Zina solo in “Three Songs Without Words,” by Paul Ben-Haim, with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra, Jacques Brourman, guest conductor. Ben-Haim (1897-1984), was born in Munich, Germany and immigrated to Palestine in 1933, becoming the dean of Israeli composers.

Here are three examples from this CD:

Sibelius Violin Concerto, Allegro moderato (track 1)

 

Three Songs Without Words, Sephardic Melody (track 6)

Barber Violin Concerto, Presto in moto perpetuo (track 9)

Audiophile Audition called the final movement of the Barber, “a bustling tour de force for Schiff and the orchestra, metrically and dynamically sizzling.”

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Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com