NEW PIANO TRIO

The New Piano Trio was founded by German violinist and composer Florian Willeitner, Austrian-Rumanian pianist Maria Radutu and Swiss-based cellist Ivan Turkalj in 2013.

Musical audiences of today treat contemporary classical music with increasing disinterest, especially the younger audience members who are more interested in the current „pop“ culture.

The New Piano Trio seeks to counter this dilemma by providing their audiences with a unique musical language that combines classical virtuosity, sounds and form, with cool and innovative rhythmic patterns and a unique harmonic language based on folk music and jazz.

The repertoire performed is exclusively written for the New Piano Trio by Florian Willeitner.
Himself a musician of great diversity, Florian uses the New Piano Trio as a platform to incorporate his musical talents as a composer and experienced classical and jazz performer in one medium.

In order to meet the technical and unique musical demands made on each member of the trio, the New Piano Trio has combined three young musical talents who are experienced jazz/folk/pop performers and improvisors, as well as being highly skilled and classically-trained musicians.

FLORIAN WILLEITNER, Violin

Florian belongs to an endangered species of musicians. As a composer, arranger, interpreter and seeker he travels the world for half the year with a violin in his backpack, writing down all of the impressions that world makes upon his soul. He is a music intellectual as well as a folk musician and enjoys a complex fuge as much as a foot stomping folk tune. Whether in a pop song, jazz standard, classical chamber piece or a violin concerto, Florian’s music is always this: World Music in its most original sense. A language that one doesn’t need to know to understand.

Florian Willeitner (*1991) is an award-winning german violinist, composer and arranger.

He is a 2nd prize winner at the International Seifert Competition 2016, his works are performed at prestigious halls and festivals throughout Europe (e.g. Musikverein Vienna, Festspielhaus Salzburg, Musikfest Stuttgart, Heidelberger Musikfrühling, ClassicalNEXT 2016) and receive great reviews worldwide („Downbeat Magazine“, „Süddeutsche Zeitung“, „London Jazz News“). He wrote for famous orchestras and soloists such as Benjamin Schmid, Georg Breinschmid, Andreas Hofmeir or the Tonkünstlerorchester Wien.

He is frequently performing at both classical and jazz festivals, concerthalls and jazzclubs, with his „New Piano Trio“ or the Viennese String Quartett „Strings&Bass“ or as a featured artist with other big names in the european jazzscene, such as Stian Carstensen, Benjamin Schmid, Georg Breinschmid, Paweł Kaczmarczyk or Antoni Donchev.

He is a sholar of the german foundation “Stiftung Cusanuswerk”.

premieres / press / awards 2013-2017 (selection)

– 2013: premiere of Pianotrio No. 1 by Benjamin Schmid

– 2014: Musikfest Stuttgart: Bach.Lab III: compositions around „Bach“

– 2015: Premiere of the concertpiece „Valentinair“ for soloviolin and orchestra at Großes Festspielhaus Salzburg, Solist: Benjamin Schmid (commissioned by the „Bläserphilharmonie Salzburg“) -> since the premiere the piece has been performed in over 10 different arrangements in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Poland

– 2015: premiere of Violinconcerto Nr. 1 for soloviolin and orchestra at the „Goldener Saal des Wiener Musikvereins“, Solist: Benjamin Schmid (commissioned by the Tonkünstlerorchester Niederösterreich) ->  the concerto will be produced by Benjamin Schmid and the Pannon Philharmonics in Pecs (Hungary) in April 2018

– 2016: 2. Prize at the International Seifert Competition (one of the biggest competitions for jazzstrings in the world)

– 2017: commission for piece for tuba and violin (by tubastar Andreas Hofmeir (La Brass Banda, soloist) and Benjamin Schmid -> will appear on their upcoming album (violin plus tuba)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEE7tk4wxCs

– 2017: Portrait of  Florian Willeitner’s work in the Salzburger Nachrichten (See Blog)

– 2017: Ö1-talent in march: Florian Willeitner is presented as the official Ö1-talent in the classic channel of the austrian radiobroadcast in a 10 minutes radioportrait (see blog/Audio)

http://oe1.orf.at/artikel/462813

– 2017: commission by the austrian state government to set poems by famous austrian poet Ernst Jandl into music (in collaboration with Georg Breinschmid (doublebass) and Agnes

Heginger (vocals))

– 2017: sold-out premiere of the reductions of „Valentinair“ und „Violinconcerto Nr.1“  for soloviolin and pianotrio by Benjamin Schmid feat. the New Piano Trio

https://livestream.com/UniMozarteumSalzburg/KlassikMeetsJazz

MARIA RADUTU, Piano

Signed with Universal since 2016 for concept albums, Maria Radutu released “Insomnia” at the famous Progy&Bess Club in Vienna.

Her solo career has taken her through Europe, Asia and the U.S. to venues including the Carnegie Hall, the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna State Opera, the Great Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, the Auditorio National in Madrid, the Radio Hall in Bucharest, the Smith Center in Las Vegas, the National Concert Hall in Taipei and the Prince Mahidol Hall in Bangkok.

Maria Radutu performed as a soloist with major orchestras including the California Symphony, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the Vienna Radio Symphony, the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, the Orquesta Clasica Santa Cecilia.

Maria regularly works with composers like Mikael Karlsson, Margareta Ferek-Petric, Marco Annau, Florian Willeitner and dedicated visuals by VerdeFish Design Studio.

Her debut CD Joujoux was released in 2013.

IVAN TURKALJ, Cello

Ivan plays his cello in every possible way; early music, new music, pop, indie rock or classical, half naked or in a bow-tie, it’s always the same musician on stage living his life of endless musical variety. Through his uncompromising playing he achieves a deep symbiosis of all different styles, never superficial and always entrancing.

… Cellist … born 1985 … living between Germany, Austria and Switzerland … passionate about Baroque and Esbjörn Svensson or train … in search of unknown musical works or current science   magazines … especially chamber musicians – in the most diverse variations  … also always at pop concerts to experience  … Fan of The Wire, the Adriatic and Tetris  … Owner of the instruments « Cai von Stitencron 2007 » and «Unknown from 182x-4x from Mittenwald»

The playful handling of musical styles, the intensive exploration of historical and contemporary playing practices and the questioning of the role of a musician in today’s world of life are the themes that Ivan Turkalj deal with in his musical work. He commutes with dedication between the epochs: from baroque decorations to contemporary experiments and from jazz patterns to the classical string quartet. This is the result of the conviction only in order to be able to understand the individual music in a fundamental way and thus not to be limited by stylistic limits.

In his projects, he is keen to listen to the diversity of his works: entertaining music with the cello quartet Cello ‘n’ Coffee, programs with piano and cello, baroque with the ensemble Rhapsody, cello solo, pop with the indie band The Hidden Cameras, contemporary music with the trio +4 or jazz with the New Piano Trio.

Born in Zagreb (Croatia) and grew up in Vienna, Ivan Turkalj began to take the first cell training with Vladimir Malinovski and was admitted to the class of Prof. Wolfgang Herzer at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He completed his studies with Prof. Orfeo Mandozzi with an artistic diploma at the University of Würzburg (2010) as well as a master’s concert at the Zurich University of the Arts (2012). He won several awards at national and international competitions and was a scholarship for nominated foundations.