Bogdan Vacarescu is an international Romanian concert violinist. He made his solo debut at the age of fourteen performing Vieuxtemps concerto no. 4 with Brasov Philharmonic conducted by Ionescu-Galati.
Bogdan has won national and international violin and chamber music competitions since he was five, when he was awarded first prize at the national competition Cântarea României.
Bogdan has made numerous recordings on television and radio across the world on Romanian National Radio and Television, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Wales and Manchester, ABC Australia, performing Bach Sonatas and Partitas, Paganini Caprices and solo works. He has also recorded soundtracks for films and documentaries, most notably in collaboration with Gabriel Yared, BBC and ABC Television.
Bogdan is equally comfortable performing rock, Balkan and traditional music as he is on the classical stage. He has collaborated with Nigel Kennedy, Paprika, The Cat Empire, Graffiti Classics, She’Koyokh and as a free-lancer with many successful ensembles in the UK.
He is a graduate of the Conservatoire of Music in Bucharest and the Royal Academy of Music in London. As a student of Beno Schwartzman, Paul Ratz and Gyorgy Pauk among others, he has been profoundly influenced by all three of the German, Russian and especially the Franco-Belgian schools of violin playing.
Julian Jacobson was born in Peebles, Scotland. His father Maurice Jacobson had had some piano lessons with Busoni while his mother, pianist and composer Margaret Lyell, had studied in Berlin with Else Krause, daughter of Liszt's pupil Martin Krause. Julian studied in London from the age of seven with Lamar Crowson (piano) and Arthur Benjamin (composition), and had published four songs by the age of nine. From 1959 to 1968 he studied at the Royal College of Music where his principal teachers were John Barstow and Humphrey Searle. On graduating with the Sarah Mundlak Piano Prize in 1968 he took up a scholarship to read Music at Queen's College, Oxford. At this time he was also a founder member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.After further studies with Louis Kentner he made his London debut at the Purcell Room in 1974. This was followed immediately by the first of five appearances in the Park Lane Group's annual Young Artists series and his Wigmore Hall debut as both solo recitalist and chamber musician. During the 1980s he established himself as a fine duo and ensemble pianist, partnering artists such as Zara Nelsova, Sandor Vegh, David Geringas, Christian Lindberg and Manuela Wiesler as well as many leading UK instrumentalists including Nigel Kennedy, Steven Isserlis, Moray Welsh, Colin Carr, Alexander Baillie and Philippa Davies.His appointment in 1992 as Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama led to an increasing concentration on solo work. In 1994 he embarked on his first cycle of the complete 32 Beethoven sonatas; he has now presented the cycle eight times, the last two in a single day (apparently being only the second pianist to attempt this). His 2003 marathon at St James's Church Piccadilly attracted worldwide media coverage and raised over £6000 for WaterAid.
Julian Jacobson has performed as soloist with orchestras including the London Symphony, BBC Symphony and City of Birmingham Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players, London Sinfonietta, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Bucharest Philharmonic, Icelandic Symphony