Mikhail Lezdkan & Béla Hartmann
Cello/Piano Duo
About the musicians
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Mikhail Lezdkan
Mikhail Lezdkan studied at the Leningrad Conservatoire, and while still a student he won second prize in the Belgrade International Cello Competition in 1984. After graduation he worked in a well-known chamber ensemble, the Soloists of Saint Petersburg. In 1991 Mikhail moved to France where he led the cello section of the Lyon Opera Orchestra, and became artistic director of a chamber music ensemble in Lille. With the violinist Vanessa Mae, in 1995 and 1996 Mikhail toured Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Mikhail played in the Contemporary Music Festival, St Petersburg in 1987, giving the first performance in Russia of Messagesquisse for solo cello by Pierre Boulez. In 2003 he gave the first European performance of the Cello Concerto by the Israel composer Gil Shohat, in the Royal Concert Hall, Stockholm.
He has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Orchestra, Belgrade Radio Orchestra, several chamber orchestras in France, the St Petersburg Hermitage Orchestra, and in England with Southern Pro Musica, Petersfield Orchestra and Havant Chamber Orchestra.
Mikhail is a committed chamber musician, and in recent years has appeared in chamber concerts across Southern England, featuring music from the standard repertoire for cello and piano and for piano trio (he is a member of the recently-formed Damira Piano Trio). In the summer of 2018 he toured Japan for three weeks as part of a small chamber ensemble.
In October 2020 he took part in a Festival of Russian Music in Vannes, Brittany, performing trios by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Concerts planned for autumn 2021 include recitals with pianists Bela Hartmann and Angela Zanders and organist Camilla Jarnot. In June 2022 he joined Petersfield Symphony Orchestra for a performance of the Cello Concerto by Dvořák.
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Béla Hartmann
Since becoming a semi-finalist at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2000 Béla
Hartmann has enjoyed a wide ranging career, performing in venues from New York (Carnegie Hall) and London (Wigmore Hall) to smaller venues across the UK and Europe. His London series of the complete Piano Sonatas of Schubert at Steinway Hall culminated in the release of his highly praised debut CD of Schubert Piano Works (Meridian), and his performances for the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe at St James’s Piccadilly featured Beethoven’s piano variations, including the monumental Diabelli Variations. Aside from that his repertoire includes contemporary works by composers such as Birtwistle, Boulez and Bussotti, and he gave UK premieres of works by Widmann and Petr Eben. His most recent CD features the early Piano Concerto in A Minor by Mendelssohn, recorded with the Keld Ensemble. Béla Hartmann is also a keen musical essayist and has published articles and reviews on a wide range of music-related topics.Béla Hartmann studied with Vadim Suchanov and Nicolas Economou in Munich, John Bingham at Trinity College of Music, London, and with Elisso Virssaladse in Munich.
As a composer Béla Hartmann has written a number of works, principally for the piano. His “Big Pieces for Small Hands” received critical praise in several countries, as did his “Paraphrases on Waltzes by Brahms”. He has composed and arranged several pieces for 4 and 6 hands as well as a number of concert transcriptions of vocal works by Mendelssohn, Brahms and Mahler. His “All Right – 9 Piano Pieces for the Right Hand Alone” were published by Goodmusic in November 2025.
Upcoming concerts
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Ensemble type
Cello/Piano Duo
Musicians
Past concerts
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