Dear Friends,

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the Fourteenth Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival. Each year, assembling an exciting programme for our unique public provides us with the fascinating challenge of exploring lesser-known works at the same time as presenting well-loved composers in a new light.

This year we will be following several strands. The anniversaries of Gustav Mahler and Franz Liszt enable us to pay tribute to these two great composers. We will hear Mahler’s celebrated song cycles and arrangements of his works - two of which are Festival commissions. Liszt is represented by his songs and piano music.

Another theme weaving its way through the 2011 Festival is the extraordinary generation of Jewish composers who, had they survived the Holocaust, would have changed the course of musical history. In each concert we will reveal some of the music of this lost generation whose future was eliminated, leaving a huge chasm.

Finally, Beethoven, one of the giants of chamber music composers, whose music the Festival will explore this year through chamber genres outside of the string quartet canon. In addition, amongst many other outstanding chamber works, we will present a special Festival commission by German composer, Matthias Pintscher.

Join us and our wonderful musicians – both familiar and new - in a voyage of discovery that will provide us all with joy and inspiration.

Elena Bashkirova
Artistic Director