On Monday 6 April, Swiss horn player Bruno Schneider will play with the Cairo Opera House Quartet.
The evening will include Hoffmeister's horn quintet, Mozart's horn quintet, the Egyptian premiere of Swiss composer Jost Meier "Cordano" for horn and string quartet, and the world premiere of Nayer Nagui's "Air Egyptien", based on Sayed Darwish's famous song "Aho dah elli sar". Both Meier's and Nagui's pieces are dedicated to Bruno Schneider.
A graduate of the Music Conservatory in La Chaux-de-Fonds and the Music Academy in Detmold where he received a virtuosity with distinction in 1981, Schneider is the founder of the Académie de cor de La Chaux de Fonds and of the Swiss Horn Society. Schneider has performed in the most prestigious halls across the world, cooperating with renowned orchestras and smaller ensembles as well as performing solo.
Since 2003 he has been a soloist at the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a seasonal orchestra which used to be directed by Claudio Abbado. Apart from his varied international commitments as a horn player he has been giving master-classes in the USA, across Europe and Asia. His book titled Horn Fundamentals was published in 2012 at the Edition BIM.
In Egypt, Schneider will play with the Cairo Opera House Quartet, an ensemble founded in 1991 by violinist Osman El-Mahdy, who is also the quartet's first violin.
El-Mahdy studied violin in Alexandria and then Cairo Conservatory and chamber music at the Geneva Conservatoire. He was a member of the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève and the Orchestre de Chambre du Jura (1985-1989), then the Cairo Symphony Orchestra (1989-1993), and finally concertmaster of the Cairo Opera Orchestra (1994-2005).
El-Mahdy has performed with numerous ensembles in Egypt as well as in Russia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, France and Switzerland. El-Mahdy was professor of violin and chamber music at the Cairo Conservatory until 2005. From 1993 onwards, he has been a professor of violin at the Talent Development Centre of Cairo Opera House, where he teaches Suzuki method.
The Cairo Opera House Quartet also includes Yasser Ghoneim on violin, Essam Abdel Hamid on viola and Mohamed Salah on cello.
Source: Ahram Online