bio english

 
ELISABETH SMALT is based in Amsterdam and works exclusively as a chamber musician, in styles varying from period instrument performance to extremely new music. Her interest in authentic performance practice was developed during her studies with Wim ten Have (one of the founders of the Orchestra of the 18th Century), and later with Jed Wentz and his ensemble Musica ad Rhenum, with which she made several recordings. She is at this moment a member of the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet, which released world premiere recordings of the early 19th century composers John Baptist Cramer and Franz Limmer as well as quintets by Ries, Schubert, Hummel, Dussek and Onslow, all on authentic instruments. She is also active in a duo with the fortepiano player Riko Fukuda, and together they are directing the project “the Schumanns in Rotterdam” around letters that Elisabeth recently found of the Schumanns in correspondence with her great-great grandfather, a concert organiser in Rotterdam. In the Brussels-based ensemble Oxalys she plays Impressionist and Romantic repertoire. Oxalys has won several prizes for their recent Reger and Mahler CDs on the label Fuga Libera, and plays on all the main international podia. Her other commitments are the Prisma String Trio (classical string trio repertoire with an emphasis on Bohemian and Hungarian music), the Amsterdam Bridge Ensemble (piano quartets,trios, duos) and Trio Scordatura, with which she plays spectral and 21st century music using unusual tuning systems and instruments such as the viola d’amore and the Adapted Viola of Harry Partch. In 2001 she commissioned an exact copy of the Partch viola (played like a viol) and she is one of the few musicians to perform his music in this authentic way. She has given Dutch premières of works for viola by Radulescu, Tenney, Harrison, Denyer, Partch and others. As the viola player of Amsterdam’s Zephyr Kwartet she premiered between 1999 and 2007 many new works by composers from Holland and abroad; in 2005 she co-curated their programme “Claude Vivier: Love Songs”, directed by Pierre Audi, at the Holland Festival 2005. Elisabeth is a regular visitor to the IMS Prussia Cove chamber music festival in Cornwall and is the musical director of Amsterdam’s KlankKleurFestival (Sound-Colour Festival), a collaboration between chamber musicians and visual artists. CD recordings of her solo- and chamber performances have appeared on Q-disk, Vanguard Classics, Explicit, Fuga Libera, Tzadik, Megadisc, New World Records, Mode Records and Brilliant Classics. livepage.apple.com

Elisabeth Smalt enjoys a versatile career as a violist in chamber music, in styles varying from period instrument performance to extremely new music.

Since 1996 Elisabeth has been a member of the Brussels-based chamber ensemble Oxalys which specialize in Romantic and Impressionistic repertoire. Oxalys also organises education projects to pass on their chamber music traditions and skills to a younger generation.

Another commitment is the Prisma String Trio, which has undertaken many innovative crossover projects mixing music with other arts, and reaches out to new audiences in Holland with its open-minded and public-friendly approach. Prisma Trio, in addition to their trio concerts, have started the Wittgenstein Project with clarinettist Lars Wouter van den Oudenweijer and left hand pianist Folke Nauta, in which they explore the chamber music commissioned by one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein.

As a member of the Van Swieten Society, an ensemble that performs classical music on authentic instruments, she has the pleasure to explore unknown chamber music repertoire from the past. Her interest in historically informed performance practice has developed in working together with specialists Wim ten Have, Jed Wentz and his ensemble Musica ad Rhenum, and with the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet which in the past decade released world premiere recordings of the early 19th century composers John Baptist Cramer and Franz Limmer as well as quintets by Ries, Schubert, Hummel, Dussek and Onslow. With the fortepiano player Riko Fukuda she founded the ensemble Eruditio Musica, after the discovery of a series of letters by Robert and Clara Schumann in correspondence with Elisabeth’s great-great grandfather Johannes Reinier Smalt, a concert organiser in Rotterdam in the 19th century. The letters were published in 2010 by the Robert-Schumann Gesellschaft in Germany.

Elisabeth is a passionate advocate of contemporary music. Between 1999 and 2007 she has commissioned and premiered many new works of composers in Holland and abroad with the Zephyr String Quartet; She co-curated their programme ‘ Claude Vivier: Love Songs”, which was directed by Pierre Audi at the Holland Festival 2005. At present she is the violist of the Luna String Quartet, dedicated to the newest music and collaborating with composers such as Ig Henneman and Kunsu Shim. With the pianist Keiko Shichijo she presents modern works for viola and piano.

From 2005 to 2011 Elisabeth was directing Amsterdam’s KlankKleurFestival, a festival with a creative collaboration between chamber musicians and visual artists. Since 2015 she co-leads the Scordatura ensemble, together with singer Alfrun Schmid. Scordatura commissions and programs new works as well as highlights from the spectral and microtonal tradition, in alternative tuning systems originally inspired by the American composer Harry Partch.  In 2001, in collaboration with musicologist and Partch expert Bob Gilmore, the founder of Scordatura - she commissioned an exact copy of  Harry Partch’s Adapted Viola, the first in Europe.  As ‘The Amsterdam Partch Project’ other instruments followed, and meanwhile three concert tours took place: The Truth about Tune, Rose Petal Jam and at present Tonality Flux.

Elisabeth recorded and premiered solo viola works by a. o. Ig Henneman, Horatiu Radulescu, James Tenney, Lou Harrison, Frank Denyer, Judith Ring, Kevin Volans, Christopher Fox, Deirdre McKay, Christian Wolff, Lou Harrison, Phill Niblock, Yannis Kyriakides, Calliope Tsoupaki and Patrick Ozzard-Low. Recordings of her solo- and chamber performances, several award-winning, have appeared on Q-disk, Vanguard Classics, Explicit, Fuga Libera, Tzadik, Megadisc, New World Records, Mode Records, Brilliant Classics, Métier/Divine Art, Pogus, Kairos and Another Timbre. www.elisabethsmalt.nl