Mihailo Trandfilovski | Divine Art Recordings

Divine Art’s new-music label, Métier, is to release a new album of solos, duos and a trio by the Macedonian-born composer, violinist and educator Mihailo Trandafilovski — all written for close friends and long-term collaborators: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin), Neil Heyde (cello), Roger Heaton and Linda Merrick (clarinets), Hugh Millington and Saki Kato (guitars), Roderick Chadwick (piano), and Mihailo himself. The recording will be issued on CD and in all digital formats in November 2022.

This album explores idiomatic and uncompromising techniques which, like other aspects of the musical language, stretch in different but complementary directions: spectral / elemental sonorities and more traditional approaches to virtuosity are bound by both harmonic / formal systems and physical directness. “These are pieces”, Mihailo says, “which can only come to life through deeply dedicated performances, in which such techniques become integrated and natural; such are those by the maverick musicians on this recording”.

Peter Sheppard Skærved, Mihailo’s violin-partner in the Kreutzer Quartet, wrote: “Mihailo is a performer-composer in the mould of Telemann, Bartók, Joachim and Liszt. Like them, it is quite impossible to separate his compositional and instrumental imaginations. His contribution to the violin [repertoire] is extraordinary – his works are gifts for audiences and players alike.”

Divine Art CEO Stephen Sutton says that he is delighted to have this new recording in the quickly-growing catalog of contemporary music on Métier, adding “We saw from Mihailo’s previous album ‘Diptych’ (Metier MSV 28582) that within what we might call ‘mainstream contemporary’, that he has a style which is individual, gripping and rather special. That he collaborates closely with his chosen performers means that we have definitive performances from the start.”

Mihailo Trandafilovski studied at Michigan State University (BMus) and the Royal College of Music in London (MMus, DMus). His studies and research have been supported by the Open Society Institute, the Macedonian Ministries of Science and Culture and the British Government (with a Chevening scholarship); among other awards are the United Music Publishers Prize for composition at the RCM and the Panče Pešev Award for best new work at the contemporary music festival Days of Macedonian Music. His music has been issued on several labels and both performed and broadcast widely.

He is a violinist in the Kreutzer Quartet, with whom he has performed and recorded extensively (with many premiere CD and DVD recordings on Métier) and held residencies at Tate St Ives, University of York and Goldsmiths College, among others; he has an avid interest in the application of new music to pedagogy, for which he was awarded his doctorate; and has led a number of shared projects among the arts promoting contemporary artistic creativity to a wider audience.

Polychromy (MSV 29629)

Mihailo Trandafilovski

Chaconne (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Grain-Song (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Šarenilo (violin duo) – Peter Sheppard Skærved & Mihailo Trandafilovski
Polychromy (cello solo – Neil Heyde)
Weaxan (clarinet trio – Linda Merrick, Peter Sheppard Skærved & Roderick Chadwick)
Sandglass (clarinet solo – Roger Heaton)
String Dune(s) (guitar duo – Saki Kato & Hugh Millington)

Recorded in London in April 2022 (recording engineer Adaq Khan)
Release date: November 11, 2022