Rebecca Rust, Violoncello (Cello)

Friedrich Edelmann, Bassoon (Fagott)

Rebecca Rust

 Violoncello (Cello)

Praised by Carlo Maria Giulini for her "exceptional musicality", the American cellist Rebecca Rust, a native of California, U.S.A. received her first piano lessons with her mother at the age of five and began cello lessons with Margaret Rowell, Cello Professor at the San Francisco Conservatory and the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford, at the age of nine.Margaret Rowell: "Rebecca Rust is one of the most talented cellists that I have had the pleasure of teaching. Blessed with a beautiful ear and facility, she has used these gifts as tools to dig deep into the music intself, thereby giving her listeners a profound musical experience. Rebecca Rust is a brilliant cellist."
 
At age thirteen she was a prizewinner of the Mendelssohn Competition and at age fourteen a prizewinner in the California Cello Club Competition. The first prizes in the "Mu Phi Epsilon" Competition and the Berkeley Piano Club made it possible for her to begin studies in New York with Bernard Greenhouse (Casals’ pupil and cellist of the Beaux-Arts-Trio).
Bernard Greenhouse: "Rebecca Rust is what I consider, one of the important young cellists to come from the American musical scene."
She became a member of the Christmas String Orchestra under the direction of Alexander Schneider, and received a scholarship to study with the Lenox Quartet.
After graduating "cum laude" in New York, she continued her studies with Paul Szabo (Casals’ pupil and cellist of the Vegh Quartet) at the Cologne College of Music, earning there a soloist diploma “with honors”. During this time she was also solo cellist of the "Orchestre Mondiale des Jeunesses Musicales" under Karel Ancerl. Master classes with Mstislav Rostropovich followed in the USA (as one of five participants from over one hundred applicants) and in Basel, Switzerland, where in the final concerts she appeared as soloist, playing the Lalo Concerto, with the Basel Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Mstislav Rostropovich. This was followed by solo concerts and radio productions in Europe, the USA, and in Japan (since 1992 regular concert tours with concerts in Tokyo, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kobe, Sendai, Mito, Hiroshima, Miyako (Okinawa), and in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, including appearances as soloist with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (Sergiu Celibidache was the patron of her debut in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall in October 1992).
At the invitation of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rebecca Rust played concerts in Africa (Morocco, Tunisia), Poland (Warsaw, Stettin, Danzig), Prague (concerts and radio productions for Prague Radio), Kobe and Tokyo (memorial concerts for the victims of the Hanshin earthquake of 1995) and Israel in February 2007.
Besides the successful CD Japanese Favorites for Violoncello, Rebecca Rust has recorded six CDs for the MARCO POLO and BAYER RECORDS labels, with works by Beethoven, Villa-Lobos, Georges Enesco, Martinu, Karl Michael Komma, Frank Bridge, Donald Francis Tovey and Chopin. (The CD with Chopin’s complete works for cello and piano was praised by Joachim Kaiser in a comparison with recordings by Fournier and Rostropovich). Some of these works were premiere recordings and still are the only available recordings of these rare and partly unpublished compositions.
On her tour to Japan in 2003 she concertized in Sapporo, Tokyo, Naruto (Tokushima), Shishikui and Kawagoe and gave a lecture (demonstration) at an Elementary School in Ohme (Tokyo) (sponsored by VOLKSWAGEN JAPAN and ANA, All Nippon Airways). After playing in Italy another tour to Japan followed in 2004 (sponsored by AXELL CORPORATION), and in 2005 she played at the EXPO2005 in Aichi at the EXPO-Dome in front of more than 1000 listeners on invitation of the German Pavilion. Within "Germany in Japan" she played at the HANS-ARP-Exhibition in Sakura (Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art) as well as in Iwate, the partner-prefecture of Rheinland-Pfalz with a greeting-message of Kurt Beck, Ministerpraesident of Rheinland-Pfalz and at the residence of the German Consul General in Osaka-Kobe (sponsored by VOLKSWAGEN JAPAN).
 The German label CAVALLI RECORDS published Rebecca Rust’s CD "Cello Dreams" with works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Fauré, Saint-Saëns and others (CCD 253). Two further CDs for Cavalli Records were published in 2004 and 2005, one with works for cello and piano by "Robert Kahn & Johannes Brahms" (CCD 269) and the second CD "Violoncello & Bassoon" with works by Mozart, Hindemith, Bizet and others in collaboration with bassoonist Friedrich Edelmann (CCD 257) supported by the government of Rheinland-Pfalz as a contrubution to "Germany in Japan" as well as honoring the composer Hans Gál, who was the director of the Music-Conservatory of Mainz, the capital of Rheinland-Pfalz from 1929 until 1933. The works by Robert Kahn and Hans Gál are World-Premiere Recordings.
At MIDEM 2006 in Cannes these world-premiere recordings were presented to the public in a very successful concert under the patronage of the famous music-film-maker Christopher Nupen, who gave a greeting-message to the audience.
In April 2006 CAVALLI-RECORDS published another CD with works for cello & piano by Johannes Brahms & Hans Gál (CCD 281). Gál's compositions were premiere recordings and the unpublished "Scottish Rhapsodies" have never been played before.
Supported by VOLKSWAGEN JAPAN and MUNICH AIRPORT two Japan tours followed in the spring and fall of 2006 (Friendship-Concerts in Sapporo, the sister-city of Munich and in Miyako-shima, Ueno German Village, also supported by the Japanese German Society Okinawa). In September-October 2006 chamberconcerts in California, U.S.A., in Berkeley and in San Francisco (German General Consulate, on occasion of the German American Friendship Award). In February 2007 eleven concerts in Israel, Tel Aviv & Jerusalem, supported by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs Berlin, the German Embassy Tel Aviv and the Japanese Embassy Tel Aviv.
In preparation: Beethoven-CD with CAVALLI-RECORDS, to be published in August 2007.
Rebecca Rust plays a Master-Cello by William Forster (1791), which formerly was owned by Prince Charles, who also played on it.

Friedrich Edelmann

Bassoon  (Fagott)

Friedrich Edelmann grew up in Kaiserslautern, Germany. He studied with Alfred Rinderspacher (Prof. in Mannheim), Klaus Thunemann (Prof. in Hamburg-Hannover-Berlin), and Milan Turkovic (Prof. in Vienna). After his diploma in mathematics ("Staatsexamen") in Heidelberg, he joined the orchestra of the "Pfalztheater" in Kaiserslautern for three years and  was 1977 - 2004  Principal Bassoonist of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra ("Münchner Philharmoniker"), from 1979 until 1996 under Maestro Sergiu Celibidache and from 1999 until 2004 under Maestro James Levine.
He won several first prizes in German national competitions and was a member of the World-Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales under Karel Ancerl, when he met the American cellist Rebecca Rust.
Together with his wife Rebecca Rust, Friedrich Edelmann now plays many concerts in America, Europe and Japan including radio- and TV-productions. As a teacher he gave courses for bassoon and chambermusic in Venezuela, U.S.A., Moscow and Tokyo, Tel Aviv Israel and at VILLA MUSICA in Germany.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany supported concert-tours of solo chambermusic by Friedrich Edelmann and Rebecca Rust to Prague, Warsaw, Sczecin, Gdansk, Tunis, Rabat and Casablanca as well as to Japan (Concerts for the Memory of the victims of the Hanshin-Earthquake in 1995 and as soloists together with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra) and to Israel.
Records are published by: "MARCO POLO" (Villa-Lobos together with flutist Emmanuel Pahud), "TUDOR" (Mercadante together with flutist A. Nicolet),  "BAYER RECORDS" (works composed for F. Edelmann by Karl Michael Komma,) and "CAVALLI-RECORDS" "Bassoon & Violoncello", CCD 257.
The composers Jan Koetsier, Otmar Mácha, Jan Novák, Karl Michael Komma and Harald Genzmer composed solo works for Friedrich Edelmann and Rebecca Rust.
In February 1998 he was a member of the "Nagano Winter Orchestra" under Seiji Ozawa with opening concerts of the Winter-Olympics in Nagano, Japan. In July-August 1998 he was the coach of the woodwinds of the World-Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales in Taipei and, together with Rebecca Rust, the soloist in the first public performance of Karl Michael Komma's "Der Tanz des Grossen Friedens" a Concerto Grosso for Bassoon, Cello, Piano and String Orchestra, in the "Opera City Concert Hall" in Tokyo. This composition was dedicated to the Emperor and Empress of Japan in celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako in 1993. Since 1992 regular concert-tours to Japan with concerts in Tokyo, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kobe, Sendai, Mito, Hiroshima, Miyako (Okinawa) and the Imperial Palace in Tokyo are on Friedrich Edelmann’s concert schedule.
On his 2003 tour to Japan he concertized together with Rebecca Rust in Sapporo, Tokyo, Naruto (Tokushima), Shishikui and Kawagoe and gave a lecture (demonstration) at an Elementary School in Ohme (Tokyo) (sponsored by VOLKSWAGEN JAPAN and ANA, All Nippon Airways).

The artists have 10 CDs with the labels: MARCO POLO, BAYER RECORDS, TUDOR and CAVALLI RECORDS on the market of which the critics say: AZ München über Villa-Lobos CD (MARCO POLO): "Volltreffer! Endringlich einfühlsame Interpretationen".
Joachim Kaiser über Gesamtwerk für Cello und Klavier von Fr. Chopin (BAYER RECORDS): "..eine der fesselndsten Interpretationen neben Aufnahmen von Fournier und Rostropowitsch".
AZ München über CD Lyrikon (BAYER RECORDS): "Es muss nicht immer Rostropowitsch sein: US-Cellistin Rebecca Rust hat Beethovens Cello-Variationen aufgenommen und braucht keinen Vergleich zu scheuen... Musizieren auf höchstem Niveau".
Record Geijutsu, Tokyo: "...spielt Rebecca Rust mit bezaubernder Anmut; ihr Spiel ist reich an Ausdruck und nichts desto weniger äusserst ausgewogen und von grosser Eleganz geprägt".
Ongaku No Tomo, Tokyo: "präsentiert in warmem und intensivem Vortrag".
ENSEMBLE (Magazin for Chambermusic) über Brahms-Kahn CD: "...mit intensivem Ton und Leidenschaft...leidend und emphatisch mit großen Steigerungswellen und süßer Tongebung interpretiert."
ABENDZEITUNG MÜNCHEN: VERGESSENE PERLEN: "...zeigt die amerikanische Cellistin mit bewunderungswürdigem Engagement und Einfühlungsvermögen, daß Robert Kahn zwar von Brahms und Schumann geprägt wurde, aber dennoch stets in der Lage war, zu einem eigenständigen Ausdruck zu finden."

About Robert Kahn (CAVALLI-RECORDS CCD 269):
ABENDZEITUNG MUENCHEN (AZ):
Forgotten Pearls: Rebecca Rust discovers Kahn
Here the American cellist Rebecca Rust shows with
admirable engagement and empathy, that Robert
Kahn was influenced by Brahms & Schumann but
always capable to find his own expression.

MÜNCHNER MERKUR: SINGENDES CELLO: "Der Klang des Cellos als singende Stimme, mal getragen und dunkel, mal nahezu ausgelassen - diese Vorstellung hat die amerikanische Cellistin Rebecca Rust auf ihrer jüngsten CD verwirklicht. ...Das Cello als männliche Bariton-Stimme - Rebecca Rust beherrscht es als reife und vielfach ausgezeichnete Musikerin meisterhaft." (CD "Celloträume")
“A Programme Full of Surprises… The Duo Works its Magic at the Herrenchiemsee Palace. From a music lover’s perspective, it seems nearly impossible that two bass instruments could carry a whole afternoon of chamber music alone. However, in the case of two virtuosi such as Rebecca Rust, the renowned cellist from California and Friedrich Edelmann, Solo-Bassoonist with the "Munich Philharmonic" (1977 – 2004) both equally masters of technique and rendition"
(Translation from: Oberbayerishes Volksblatt, Rosenheim)

Rebecca Rust, violoncello, and Friedrich Edelmann, bassoon, have played together in duo and larger chamber-music groups for over 30 years. They are offering either full evening concerts with well crafted duo repertoire for this unusual instrument combination cello & bassoon - (FACELLO; MOZART-DUO-MUNICH; ROSSINI-DUO) -  (Mozart, Rossini, Bizet, Boccherini and others) or by adding piano and including works by Glinka, Schiffelholz and works especially composed for them as a TRIO (Cello-Bassoon-Piano).

Listen to Rebecca Rust's CDs:

CD "Bassoon and Violoncello": www.cavalli-records.de/index.htm?/html_en/ccd/ccd257.htm
CD "Cellodreams": www.cavalli-records.de/index.htm?/html_en/ccd/ccd253.htm
CD "Johannes Brahms & Robert Kahn": www.cavalli-records.de/indes.htm?/html_en/ccd/ccd269.htm
CD "Hans Gál & Johannes Brahms": www.cavalli-records.de/index.htm?/html_en/ccd/ccd281.htm

IN PREPARATION, Publication by CAVALLI-RECORDS: August 2007:

BEETHOVEN-CD with compositions for cello & piano and cello & bassoon

New updates of the profiles, photos, CD order, additional information directly from:
rebecca@rebeccarust.com;
edelmann@friedrichedelmann.com

Website:
www.rossini-duo.de;
www.rebeccarust.com

Pictures (high resolution):