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About JMR - Artist Biographies
But beyond just sounding great, in all our projects we have presented real artists making real art. After you experience real art, you somehow perceive the world and the people in it differently. For the better, we hope. That’s what we’re in it for. I started JMR as an outgrowth of a lifelong fascination with music and technology. But in our hierarchy of values, the music comes first, the musicians a close second, and the technology third. I had been a music student, and was a friend of both Arturo Delmoni and Nathaniel Rosen, before I started JMR. JMR is not a case of somebody buying a tape recorder and then looking for something to record! Famous critics have rated our CDs on the same artistic level (or higher!) with offerings from any of the major labels. Our technology is second to none, but it is at the service of artists with integrity and unique insights. John Marks Records was founded in 1992. Our products are distributed in North America by Allegro Corporation. We export to fourteen countries. I am a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. My writing about sound and music appears regularly in Stereophile magazine. I also publish a newsletter on culture and the arts, "John Marks Recommends." "It’s hard to imagine how the violin could be much better played than Delmoni did - he plays with astonishing speed, lightness, fluency and sweetness of tone." Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe Arturo Delmoni’s remarkably distinctive violin playing embodies the romantic warmth that was the special genius of the great virtuosi of the golden age of violin playing. Audiences everywhere have fallen under the spell of his technical mastery and immediate emotional communication. His stylish, elegant interpretations of classical masterpieces have earned him critical acclaim in the United States and abroad. Delmoni has appeared with the St. Louis, Dallas, Spokane, Jupiter, El Paso, Glendale, and Tucson Symphonies; the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston; the California Chamber Symphony; the Rhode Island, Brooklyn, Boston, Omaha, and Kansas City Philharmonics; and the Boston Pops. He has appeared as a recitalist throughout the United States and in Europe, the Middle East, Japan, and Hong Kong. As a chamber musician, he has performed with illustrious colleagues such as Pinchas Zukerman, Elmar Oliveira, Emanuel Ax, Nathaniel Rosen, Jon Kimura Parker, Jeffrey Kahane, and Dudley Moore. He regularly appears at the Seattle, Steamboat Springs (Colorado), Deer Valley (Utah), and Sitka (Alaska) festivals. He also served on the jury for the first Henryk Szeryng Competition in Mexico City. Born to Italian parents living in New York, Delmoni received his first violin lessons at age four, and soon came to the attention of Dorothy DeLay of the Juilliard School. His public career had already begun with recitals and a network television appearance when he entered Juilliard as a Naumburg scholarship student. He continued his studies with Miss DeLay, Ivan Galamian, and with Josef Gingold during summers at the Meadowmount School. After graduation from Juilliard, Delmoni studied with Jascha Heifetz at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Special Musical Studies, and with Nathan Milstein. He took honors in the Dealey, Flagler, Viña del Mar, Kennedy-Rockefeller, and Leventritt competitions. Songs My Mother Taught Me, Delmoni’s recording of romantic miniatures and encore pieces, received extraordinary reviews from prominent critics. Audiophiles and audio critics generally regard his recording of unaccompanied violin music of Ysaÿe, Kreisler, and Bach as a reference for the sound of a solo violin. Reviewing Delmoni’s recording of sonatas for violin and piano of Franck and Fauré, Alan Heatherington of American Record Guide wrote: "The growing discography of Arturo Delmoni testifies to a musician who must possess an artistic soul of exceptional beauty. Each new issue reveals additional aspects of a winsome musical personality and verifies an impression of great warmth and geniality." Arturo Delmoni & Friends’ Rejoice! A String Quartet Christmas, received enthusiastic recommendations from Stereo Review, American Record Guide, and scores of major newspapers. Rejoice! Volume Two has enjoyed the same critical success. Delmoni’s duo recital with cellist Nathaniel Rosen, entitled Music for a Glass Bead Game, was nominated for a 1998 AFIM Indie Award, received a Golden Ear award, and was on Fanfare’s "Best of 1998" list. Delmoni’s most recently released recording is Rejoice! Volume Three. Nathaniel Rosen brings an awesome technical ability and no-nonsense musicianship — neither self-conscious nor posturing — to the cello repertoire. Rosen gained instant global recognition when, in 1978, he became the first American cellist ever to win the International Tchaikovsky Competition’s Gold Medal. To this day, Rosen is the only American cellist to win this uniquely prestigious award. One year earlier, he had captured the attention of American musical circles by winning the Walter W. Naumburg Competition. Rosen began studying the cello at the age of six. He says that he did not fit the mold of the traditional precocious child prodigy. Instead, his was a lengthy, disciplined, and continuing training in technique and interpretation under the guidance of Eleonore Schoenfeld. By age thirteen, his artistic gifts and unmistakable talent caught the attention of the legendary Gregor Piatigorsky, who became Rosen’s teacher and mentor. At age twenty-two, Rosen became Piatigorsky’s assistant, a post he retained until shortly before the master’s death in 1976. During his years with Piatigorsky, Rosen also enjoyed a close association with Jascha Heifetz, and participated frequently as cellist in chamber ensembles under the great violinist’s tutelage. At age seventeen, Rosen toured the Soviet Union as a finalist in the Third International Tchaikovsky Competition (1966). He was the youngest competitor among forty-two cellists, and was one of only three Americans to win a prize. He returned to Russia twelve years later (1978), when he and violinist Elmar Oliveira became the first American Gold Medal-winning instrumentalists since Van Cliburn. He served as Artistic Director of the Interlochen Summer Chamber Music Series in 1988-89, is a founding member of the Sitka Summer Music Festival, was Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony for two years, and of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for eight years. Nathaniel Rosen has appeared as a guest on NBC-TV. He has performed as soloist on PBS with "Previn and the Pittsburgh" in Strauss’ Don Quixote; in Mozart’s G-Minor Quartet with Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, and Andre Previn; and with the Boston Pops and John Williams, playing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. Audiences throughout North America, Central America, Europe, and Asia have had the opportunity to enjoy Rosen’s sensitive musicianship on recordings, in recital, and as guest soloist with many of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the New York, Los Angeles, and Czech Philharmonics; the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Philadelphia, Minnesota, and Dresden State Orchestras; l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; and the London, Sofia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Kansas City, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Dallas, Houston, Spokane, Lincoln, Columbus, and Vancouver Symphonies. Rosen teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, and holds the Chauncey Devereux Stillman Chair for Distinguished Visiting Artist at Thomas More College, Merrimack, New Hampshire. He plays a magnificent 1738 Montagnana cello, in both live performance and on recordings. Ruggiero Ricci was born in San Francisco in 1918, and made his début there at age ten. Ricci’s teacher from age six was Louis Persinger. He later studied with Michel Piastro, Paul Stassevich, and Georg Kulenkampf. Ricci’s playing combines bravura technical resources with a broad palette of tone color, always in the service of expressive musical communication. Ricci is universally regarded as this century’s primary exponent of the music of Nicolò Paganini, having made the first complete recording of the Caprices in their original form, as well as having made the US premieres of the Fourth and Sixth concerti. His career has taken him to 65 countries where he has played more than 5,000 concerts. Ricci teaches at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, as well as holding annual masterclasses in Berlin. |
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