Basel Chamber Orchestra

The Basel Chamber Orchestra frequently collaborates with selected soloists such as Maria João Pires, Jan Lisiecki, Isabelle Faust and Christian Gerhaher. The Basel Chamber Orchestra presents its broad repertoire under the artistic direction of the first violins and the baton of selected conductors such as Heinz Holliger, René Jacobs and Pierre Bleuse. The concert programmes are as diverse as the 47 musicians and range from early music on historical instruments to contemporary music and historically informed interpretations.  An important element of the work is the future-oriented education programs in large-scale participatory projects involving creative exchange with children and young people.  The creative work of the Basel Chamber Orchestra is documented by an extensive and award-winning discography.

The Clariant Foundation has been the presenting sponsor of the Basel Chamber Orchestra since 2019.

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Daniel co-founded Trio Mondrian, a group that played together from 2007-2019.  The trio received first prize at the 2007 International Chamber Music Competition in Trieste, Italy and performed in prestigious venues including Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw and La Fenice in Venice. Trio Mondrian has been named a BBT fellowship winner in 2009. Daniel is also a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project, a chamber group active in both Israel and the USA.

One of the biggest passions of Daniel is the chamber orchestra. He has been invited by Tabea Zimmermann to guest lead Camerata Bern, and directed numerous projects with Sweden’s Camerata Nordica and Norway’s Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. He was principal violist of the Amsteradm Sinfonietta from 2009 to 2016. In 2017, Daniel became concertmaster of the Basel Chamber Orchestra in Switzerland where he performed “Meta Arca” by Heinz Holliger with composer conducting. In April 2018 Daniel performed the Dutch premiere of John Woolrich’s “Ulysses Awakes” with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

Equally at home as a violinist and violist, Daniel is invited to play chamber music concerts all across Europe and Israel. He has collaborated with artists such as Menahem Pressler, Antje Weithaas, Shmuel Ashkenzi, Tabea Zimmermann, and performed in festivals such as Prussia Cove and Musikdorf Ernen and Peasmarsh Music Festival.

Lastly, Daniel enjoys greatly sharing his passion for music-making with the next generation. He has lead both instrumental and chamber music classes at the Amsterdam Conservatory and at the chamber music sessions of the Jerusalem Music Centre.

Daniel plays on a 2020 violin made by Paul Belin from Maintal and a James Tubbs bow generously gifted to him by the late Bud Beyer, a great and inspiring mentor.

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In September 2016, Hewitt began her Bach Odyssey, performing the complete keyboard works of Bach in a series of 12 recitals. The cycle was presented in London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92nd Street Y, and in Ottawa, Tokyo and Florence, concluding in 2022. After her performances of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival, the critic of the London Times wrote, “…the freshness of Hewitt’s playing made it sound as though no one had played this music before.”

Hewitt’s award-winning cycle for Hyperion Records of all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Her discography also includes albums of Couperin, Rameau, Scarlatti, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, Debussy, Chabrier, Ravel, Messiaen and Granados. The final CD in her complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas (Op.106 and Op.111) was released in February 2022, and the first of three Mozart albums, dedicated to the composer’s complete sonatas, is released in November 2022. A regular in the USA Billboard chart, her album Love Songs hit the top of the specialist classical chart in the UK and stayed there for months after its release. In 2015 she was inducted into Gramophone Magazine’s ‘Hall of Fame’ thanks to her popularity with music lovers around the world.

Conducting from the piano, Hewitt has led the Toronto and Vancouver Symphony orchestras, the Hong Kong and the Copenhagen Philharmonic orchestras, the Lucerne Festival Strings, the Kammerorchester Basel, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Britten Sinfonia, the Swedish and Zurich Chamber orchestras, the Salzburg Camerata, the orchestra of RAI Torino, the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan, and in 2019 made her debut playing and conducting Bach with the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna’s Musikverein. The upcoming 2022/23 season sees her performing with orchestras in Finland, Denmark, Montreal, Ottawa, Victoria BC, Prague, Germany, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York. Recitals take her to, among others, Barcelona, San Francisco, Seattle, Vienna, Amsterdam, Cambridge, Leipzig, and the famous Teatro La Fenice in Venice. She is also an artist-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall.

Born into a musical family, Hewitt began her piano studies aged three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. She studied with Jean-Paul Sévilla at the University of Ottawa, and in 1985 won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition which launched her career. In 2018 Angela received the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2015 she received the highest honour from her native country – becoming a Companion of the Order of Canada (which is given to only 165 living Canadians at any one time). In 2006 she was awarded an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, has seven honorary doctorates, and is a Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse College in Cambridge. In 2020 Angela was awarded the Wigmore Medal in recognition of her services to music and relationship with the hall over 35 years.

Angela lives in London but also has homes in Ottawa and Umbria, Italy where, eighteen years ago, she founded the Trasimeno Music Festival – a week-long annual event which draws an audience from all over the world.

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