Jonian Ilias Kadesha

Biography

"To regard him simply as a huge talent is not enough; there is an element of pure genius in this young man."

Jonian Ilias Kadesha has Greek-Albanian roots and lives in Berlin. The young musician not only speaks Greek, Albanian, German and English but also has a keen interest in philosophy and rhetoric.

His playing is characterized by stylistic accuracy in the interpretation of early to contemporary works, and in the exactness of his articulation. With boundless imagination of sound, Kadesha is always in search of something new.

He is a prizewinner of the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb, Windsor International and the Leopold Mozart Violin Competitions.

The young violinist recently made his debut with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in the Tivoli Copenhagen, with the RTE Orchestra at the National Concert Hall Dublin, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Russian State Orchestra under Yuri Bashmet and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Kronberg Festival. He made his debut with the Athens State Orchestra in Autumn 2019 performing the Skalkottas Violin Concerto, whose Small Suites he recorded for CAvimusic, along with works by Enescu and Ravel in 2017. Together with the cellist Vashti Hunter and in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, he recorded the CD A Journey for Two with works by Honegger, Skalkottas, Xenakis and Kodály, which was also released by CAvi-music in the summer.

Jonian Ilias Kadesha already appears in the most important concert halls and at well-known festivals across Europe. In early August, he opened the Young Euro Classic Festival in Berlin after months of Covid-19-related concert silence in the German capital. Other significant appearances have led him to the Wigmore Hall London, Handelsbeurs Concertzaal Gent, Louvre Paris, Philharmonie Berlin, Salle Molière Lyon, Salle Garnier Montecarlo, and the Golden Hall Augsburg as well as the Schubertiade, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Boswiler Sommer, Mantua Chamber Music Festival or the Resonances Festival in Belgium, among others.

Kadesha has performed with orchestras such as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra and the Albanian and Greek radio orchestras. In the 2020/21 season, he will perform Shostakovich's Violin Concerto no. 2 with the Athens State Symphony Orchestra, will appear with the London Mozart Players and can be heard with the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra and the Meiningen Staatskapelle.

Chamber music connects him with renowned musicians such as Martha Argerich, Steven Isserlis, Nicolas Altstaedt, Thomas Demenga, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Ilya Gringolts and Pekka Kuusisto. He was also heard at the Kronberg Chamber Music Connects the World and the Verbier Academy Festival. He is co-founder of the award-winning Trio Gaspard, which regularly appears at festivals and in the music centers of Europe and the USA. The joint recording Trio Gaspard - Live in Berlin, with works by Haydn, Zimmermann and Schubert, was recently released on CAvi-music. Together with cellist Florian SchmidtBartha, Kadesha founded the Caerus Chamber Ensemble in 2017, a flexible chamber ensemble made up of outstanding instrumentalists from the young generation of European musicians.

Kadesha studies with Antje Weithaas at the Kronberg Academy. His previous teachers included Salvatore Accardo, Grigori Zhislin and Ulf Wallin. He studied chamber music with Hatto Beyerle in Hannover and at the European Chamber Music Academy. Masterclasses with Ferenc Rados, Steven Isserlis, Ivry Gitlis, Leonidas Kavakos and Eberhard Feltz complete his studies. Since 2018, Kadesha has been supported by the Young Classical Artists Trust in the United Kingdom.

Jonian Ilias Kadesha plays a violin by Nicolas Lupot (1824), on loan by the Stretton Society.