Edin Karamazov Guitar | Lute

Edin Karamazov's thrilling virtuoso performances on the lute and guitar have garnered rave reviews and unprecedented critical acclaim in Europe and America. As a soloist he has performed and recorded with leading international early music ensembles and artists including the Hilliard Ensemble, Hesperion XX, Andreas Scholl as well as Sting.

A consummate interpreter and master technician on numerous early and contemporary stringed instruments and outstanding recital artist Edin Karamazov has appeared at Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, Konzerthaus Vienna, Herkulessaal Munich as well as at festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Mosel, Lower Saxony, Istanbul Bach, Espinho, among others.

Edin Karamazov plays several plucked instruments of various cultures and epoches and remains committed to exploring the use of lutes in modern music and contemporary improvisational contexts. In addition to his solo career he enjoys collaborating with singers and instrumentalists as Andreas Scholl, Nuria Rial and Dorothee Oberlinger in different styles and backgrounds.

His discography includes the CDs Come heavy sleep with works by Britten and Bach (alpha records),

XXI (Contemporary Music for Solo Lute) (Lumaudis), The Lute is a Song (including arias with Andreas Scholl. Renée Fleming and Sting) (Decca), Songs From the Labyrinth with Sting (Deutsche Grammophon), Wayfaring Stranger – Folksongs as well as A Musical Banquet (Lutesongs) with Andreas Scholl (Decca), Reminiscences for guitar and string quartet, Mosaiques for guitar and violin with Stefan Milenkovich (Lumaudis) as well as Seance for guitar, lute and violoncello with Boris Andrianov (Lumaudis).
Coviello Classics has released the album Con guitara with the programme A Spanish journey together with Nuria Rial in 2020 and Sony Classical/deutsche harmonia mundi the album Dialoge featuring the programme Bach a due with Dorothee Oberlinger.

Protegé of Sergiu Celibidache, Edin Karamazov began his musical career with the classical guitar and was awarded First Prizes at four guitar competitions. He continued his studies of the Baroque Lute with Hopkinson Smith at the Scola Cantorum Basiliensis.

Season 2021/22

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News

Dorothee Oberlinger & Edin Karamazov: Bach Album

Sony Classical | deutsche harmonia mundi releases the first album of Dorothee Oberlinger and Edin Karamazov with their highly acclaimed programme for recorder and

lute by J.S. Bach on 11 June.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3eZhk76QXrZxElox5OY4CW

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Dorothee Oberlinger & Edin Karamazov on tour

Dorothee Oberlinger and Edin Karamazov perform the programme Bach a due in Berlin on 6 October, 22:00 (CET) at RBB (video https://www.rbb24.de/kultur/ available from 8 October) and in Bayreuth on 8 October at Markgräfliches Opernhaus.

Edin Karamazov plays Bach

Experience a video of Edin Karamazov with Bach's Chaconne for guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkskQMKBRjU

Edin Karamazov: portrait in France Musique

Radio France broadcasts a portrait of Edin Karamazov on 20 June, 12:30-13:00 in France Musique: https://www.francemusique.fr/programmes/2020-06-20

Edin Karamazov & Dorothee Oberlinger in Glarus and Ravensburg

Dorothee Oberlinger and Edin Karamasov perform music by J.S. Bach for recorder and lute in Glarus on 3 January and in Ravensburg on 12 January.

Edin Karamazov in Budapest

Edin Karamazov performs a lute recital in Budapest, Franz Liszt Academy on 25 October with a programme of J.S. Bach, Giovanni Zamboni and Leo Brouwer.

Dorothee Oberlinger & Edin Karamazov

Dorothee Oberlinger and Edin Karamazov perform the J.S. Bach programme for flute and lute in Blaibach Konzerthaus on 10 September.

Edin Karamazov at Hulencourt Festival

On 4 May Edin Karamazov gives a lute recital at Hulencourt Festival in Genappe, Belgium, performing music by J.S. Bach, Giovanni Zamboni and Alessandro Piccinini.

Edin Karamazov at Thüringer Bachwochen

Edin Karamazov performs at Thüringer Bachwochen in Wechmar on 13 April with Bach's cello suites arranged for lute in interaction with vocal compositions.

Deutschlandradio Kultur sends the broadcast on 14 April, 20:03-22:00 (CET).

 

 

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Edin Karamazov at Festival Internacional de Musica de Espinho

Edin Karamazov performs a lute recital at Festival Internacional de Musica de Espinho in Portugal on 20 July. The programme features two cello suites and ciaconne from violin partita by J.S. Bach.

Edin Karamazov at Gitarrenfestival Maindreieck

Edin Karamazov performs at Gitarrenfestival Maindreieck on 31 July in Marktbreit a solo recital as well as a duo recital with Pavel Steidl on 1 August in Sommerhausen to feature J.S. Bach, Zamboni, Barrias, Brouwer, Rachmaninow, Sor, Haydn, Schubert. Here a video with Bach's Suite for cello No. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0_53InM3i8

Press

  • Album Dialoge: J.S. Bach with Dorothee Oberlinger & Edin Karamazov

    Dorothee Oberlinger convinces again with a virtuosic and flowery sound, which combines wonderfully with all its sensuality with the rhythmically fine and dynamically nuanced playing of Edin Karamazov. 

    www.pizzicato.lu, 21.06.2021

    An album that shows how wonderful Bach's music sounds again and again even in non-original line-ups, when the arrangements are well done and when they are played as masterfully as by Oberlinger and Karamazov.

    Hr2, Meinolf Bunsmann, 21.06.2021

  • Dorothee Oberlinger & Edin Karamazov at Festival de Música Antigua de Sevilla: An explosive Bach

    Dorothee Oberlinger and especially Edin Karamazov did not spare a single resource to add color and to get the listener to understand the sense of every measure of this music [...] The duo filled every phrase and every gesture of the music with meaning, in a Bach-faithful interpretation.

    Diario de Sevilla, Juan Ramón Lara, 26.03.2021


  • An intriguingly pictorial evening

    This interpretation of Bach offered something new. Dorothee Oberlinger and Edin Karamazov created small dramas in different tones and roles on the stage of the Margravial Opera House Bayreuth. […] The variety of sounds was enormous, and Bach's musical language was suddenly amazingly pictorial. One could have listened to the two artists for hours as they spread the sound spectrum and related it to each other. That was music-making at a very high level.

    Zeit für Kultur, Gordian Beck, 08.10.2020

  • Precious musical gifts: Duo Dorothee Oberlinger & Edin Karamazov

    Dorothee Oberlinger and Edin Karamazov are excellent instrumentalists who create arcs with ease and elegance. The mutual co-ordination and mature playing culture of the recorder player and the lutenist are of gripping beauty and provide a teasing factor at the highest level. […] One admires skilful playing, artistic passion and a delightful wealth of masterly designed moods. Huge applause.

    www.glarus24.ch, Peter Meier 04.01.2020

  • Edin Karamazov at Schubertiade Hohenems

    After the break, Edin Karamazov surprised with a wonderful arrangement of the Handel cantata "Nel dolce tempio" (...) His subtle improvisations, the English folk songs arranged by Leo Brouwer, as well as his diagonally harmonious settings of the Spanish poet García Lorca tore the audience into raptures. This has been a concert experience with an addictive factor.

    Neue Vorarlberger Tageszeitung, Barbara Camenzind, 07.09.2016

  • Magic sounds of the lute

    Only someone like Karamazov can venture with the lute to challenging pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the D Minor Chaconne, a highlight of the violin literature for lute, the artist mastered the variations in the ostinato bass at the same time chordal and polyphonic playing in alternation with arpeggios and virtuoso unanimous passages (...) Karamazov transcribed Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor with mediterranean flair. The playback, with its steady change of movement, the broken chords and the cadenza, was admirable and received huge applause.

    Allgäuer Zeitung, 13.08.2010

  • CD: The Lute is a Song

    Edin Karamazov was always a great player – technically superb, musically imaginative and never afraid to take risks (...) Who can resist a fabulous, Eastern-sounding lute version of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor ? Or a lute version of Carlo Domeniconi’s Turkish delight Koyunbaba, normally heard on classical guitar but here given a mind-bending reappraisal on a 14-course Baroque lute?

    Gramophone, William Yeoman, 5/2009

  • Edin Karamazov at Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival

    Edin Karamazov presented himself as an instrumentalist whose playing and art of interpretation literally took the breath of the audience. He took the risk of constantly juxtaposing some of the strictly contrapuntal works of the most important master of the Baroque period, J. S. Bach, with contemporary compositions by Cuban Leo Bouwer. Karamazov an ingeniously arranged version of the famous Chaconne of Partita in D minor for solo violin by J.S. Bach, the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E flat major, and an adaptation of the Toccata and Fugue D minor which demanded from the lutenist a virtuosity that pushes the boundaries of the playable.

    shz.de, Ulrich Jess, 08.08.2008

  • Ein Traum von spanischer Folklore

    Die für spanische Musik durchwegs gewöhnliche Besetzung Gesang & Gitarre ist auf dem Album "Con Guitarra" mit einem außergewöhnlichen, berückend musizierenden Duo zu erleben: Núria Rial und Edin Karamazov. Gemeinsam fühlen die katalanische Sopranistin und ihr bosnischer Begleiter jenen spanischen und sephardischen Volksliedern nach, die Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados und Lorenzo Paloma kompositorisch verarbeitet haben. Die gefeierte Sängerin Rial betört dabei einmal mehr mit ihrer klaren, leuchtenden Stimme. Karamazov, der sich sowohl mit historischem als auch modernem Saiteninstrumentarium einen Namen gemacht hat, besticht durch sein elaboriertes Gitarrenspiel.

    ORF, Marie-Theres Himmler, 12.01.2021

Programmes

Guitar solo1)
J.S. Bach/Edin Karamazov: Suites No. 1-6 for violoncello on 6 different guitars

2)
J.S. Bach/Edin Karamazov: Suite No. 4 for violoncello (BWV 1010)
Leo Brouwer: El Decamerón Negro
Fernando Sor (1778-1839): Variations sur un air favori de Mozart op. 9
Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944): Tres Valsas
J.S. Bach/Edin Karamazov: Ciaccona from Partita No. 2 for violin (BWV 1004)
Lute soloGiovanni Zamboni (1650-?): Sonata No. 9
Alessandro Piccinini (1566-1638): Intavolatura di Liuto (1623)
Giovanni Zamboni: Sonata No. 1
J.S. Bach/Edin Karamazov: Suite No. 1 for violoncello G Major BWV 1007
J.S. Bach/Edin Karamazov: Suite No. 4 for violoncello E flat Major BWV 1010
Bach a due with Dorothee Oberlinger, recorderSuite D minor BWV 997 for recorder and B.c.
Suite for violoncello solo No. 1 BWV 1007 (arrangement for lute solo)
Sonata G minor BWV 1034 for recorder and B.c.
Sonata F minor BWV 1035 for recorder and B.c.
"Solo pour la flute traversière" C minor BWV 1013 for recorder solo
J.S. Bach/Alessandro Marcello: Oboe concerto D minor BWV 974
A Spanish journey with Nuria Rial, sopranoEnrique Granados: Tonadillas en estilo Antiguo
Fernando Sor: Variations op. 9 (guitar solo)
Lorenzo Palomo: Cinco Canciones Sefardies (Five Sephardic Songs)
Isaac Albeniz: Mallorca & Torre Bermeja (guitar solo)
Manuel de Falla: Siete canciones populares Espanolas (Seven Spanish Songs)
Guitar Duo with Pavel SteidlMusic by Fernando Sor, Haydn, Johann Kaspar Mertz, Schubert
Hommage to Bill Evans with Benjamin Schmid, violin and others

Discography

Dialoge: J.S. Bach Dorothee Oberlinger (recorder)
Edin Karamazov (lute)
Sony Classical/deutsche harmonia mundi (2021)
Con guitarra

Nuria Rial (soprano)
Edin Karamazov (guitar)
Works by de Falla, Granados and Palomo
Coviello Classics (2020)

The Lute is a Song

Edin Karamazov (solo), Andreas Scholl, Renée Fleming, Sting
Decca (2008)

Songs from the Labyrinth Edin Karamazov (solo), Sting
Music by John Dowland
Deutsche Grammophon (2006)
Come heavy sleep Music by J.S. Bach & Benjamin Britten
alpha records (2004)