Clarinet Quintets - CD

Clarinetist Dimitri Ashkenazy celebrates his recent 50th birthday with a recording of two of his favorite works: the much-loved quintet in B Minor by Johannes Brahms, coupled with "Gardens of Love" by the Lebanese composer Houtaf Khoury. He collaborates with Robin Sharp, Mechthild Karkow, Jennifer Anschel and Gundula Leitner - four musicians of the younger generation, all busy as chamber and orchestral musicians throughout Europe. Born in 1969 in New York, Dimitri Ashkenazy began playing the piano at the age of six and then switched to the clarinet under the tuition of Giambattista Sisini, with whom he continued studying when he entered the Conservatory of Lucerne in 1989. Since completing his studies, he has gone on to perform widely, both as soloist and chamber musician. On tour, he has appeared at the Royal Festival Hall in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Hollywood Bowl with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony and SBS Youth Orchestras, at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and in Japan with the Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and Mito Chamber Orchestras.