OPENING NIGHT CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE
Featuring world-renowned classical musicians Barry Guy, Maya Homburger, Frank van den Brink and Julian Reynolds
Lazaros Kountouriotis Mansion | Friday 3 October 2025
Opening Night began with a reception at the historic Lazaros Koundouriotis Mansion overlooking Hydra Port, where ArtCinema members and guests gathered for an evening of conversation, hospitality and live classical music.
The programme featured performances by acclaimed musicians Barry Guy, Maya Homburger, Frank van den Brink and Julian Reynolds, creating an intimate musical opening to the 2025 weekend.
BARRY GUY AND MAYA HOMBURGER
Barry Guy is an innovative bass player and composer whose creative diversity in the fields of jazz improvisation, chamber and orchestral performance and solo recitals is the outcome both of an unusually varied training and a zest for experimentation, underpinned by a dedication to the double bass and the ideal of musical communication.
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He is founder and Artistic Director of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra and the BGNO (Barry Guy New Orchestra) for which he has written several extended works. In 2014 he founded the “Blue Shroud Band” to perform his composition “The Blue Shroud” based on Picasso's painting “Guernica” with texts by the Irish poet Kerry Hardie.
His concert works for chamber orchestras, chamber groups and soloists have been widely performed and his skillful and inventive writing has resulted in an exceptional series of compositions. In 2016 Barry Guy was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Middlesex, London and also appointed Honorary Professor to the Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen. In 2019 he completed a commission for the KRONOS String Quartet as part of their series “50 for the Future”. Barry Guy continues to give solo recitals throughout Europe as well as continuing associations with colleagues involved in improvised, baroque and contemporary music.
Among his current ensembles are the Homburger / Guy Duo, the "Acanthis" Trio with Lucas Niggli and Maya Homburger, the Duo with Jordina Milla (piano), the Parker / Guy / Lytton trio, "Tarfala" with Mats Gustafsson and Raymond Strid, “Free Radicals” with Peter Evans (tpt) and Agusti Fernandez (piano), the trio with Torben Snekkestad (saxophone and Agusti Fernandez (piano) as well as various piano trios: The Izumi Kimura Trio with Gerry Hemingway, the trio with Agusti Fernandez and Zlatko Kaucic, the trio with Angelica Sanchez and Ramon Lopez and the longstanding trio with Marilyn Crispell and Paul Lytton.
Maya Homburger originally moved to England to join various ancient music ensembles and became one of the leaders of John Eliot Gardiner's "English Baroque Soloists".
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Ever since meeting the composer and solo bassist Barry Guy - on the occasion of an extended concert tour with Christopher Hogwood’s Academy of Ancient Music in 1988 - she has devoted her time developing her own personal style on the baroque violin as well as managing Improvised and New Music projects and running her own CD label Maya Recordings.
The idea to perform baroque solo works in the context of free improvised music and newly commissioned pieces sparked off the Homburger/Guy Duo and together Maya Homburger and Barry Guy have given concerts in many major Jazz, New Music and Baroque Music Festivals all over Europe and in Canada.
Her specialities are performances of H.I.F. Biber's Mystery Sonatas as well as chamber music and cantatas by J.S.Bach.
After living in Ireland for nine years where they contributed both to the early as well as the contemporary music scene, they moved to Switzerland in 2006. The close connection to Ireland however remained : From 2011-2017 they organised their own music and art festival in Ireland : Barrow River Arts Festival (BRAF) and they perform regularly in various Irish festivals and concert series with the ensemble "Camerata Kilkenny".
Recordings include a. o. the Duo CDs “Ceremony” (ECM) and “Dakryon” (MAYA Recordings). The recording of the complete set of H. I. F. Biber's (1644-1704) famous Mystery Sonatas for violin and basso continuo has also been released on the MAYA label as well as a series of three solo violin CDs with J.S.Bach's Sonatas and Partitas BWV1001-1006 paired with Barry Guy's works for solo violin, called the "Butterfly Series" : “Inachis”, “Aglais” and “Lysandra”. Another ECM recording is “Folio” where she appears as violin soloist together with the Munich Chamber Orchestra. The latest Homburger/Guy Duo CD has appeared on the Intact Records Label and is called “Tales of Enchantment”. She also appears together with the Barry Guy New Orchestra (BGNO) as soloist on the Intakt CD "Amphi" and in various recordings with the Blue Shroud Band.
Maya Homburger plays on three baroque violins which are all in original, historic condition: Antonio dalla Costa, Treviso 1740, Samuel Thompson, London 1720, Thomas Perry, 1780 Dublin. She also plays - with the baroque bow of course - on a beautiful modern violin built in 2020 by the German luthier Stefan-Peter Greiner.
FRANK VAN DEN BRINK
Frank van den Brink studied at the Conservatoria of Amsterdam and The Hague, graduating with honors from both academies. At the age of 20 van den Brink was appointed solo-clarinetist of the North Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. He currently holds the solo clarinetist position with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Frank is also a member of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the van Swieten Society.
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As a ‘guest principal’ van den Brink has worked with many orchestra’s worldwide, such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, l’Orchestre National de France, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ensemble Modern.
As a soloist van den Brink has performed and recorded with many orchestras in the Netherlands and Europe, including the Radio Philharmonic, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the North Netherlands Philharmonic, European Chamber Orchestra Per Musica, the Orchestra of Tblisi and the Radio Chamber Philharmonie.Throughout his professional life van den Brink has also devoted his attention to the history of the clarinet, performing on period instruments with the orchestras of Frans Brüggen, Emmanuel Krivine, Jos van Immerseel, John Eliot Gardiner and Philip Herreweghe, also appearing as a soloist with the Amsterdam Mozart Academy and Arion Baroque Montreal.
A dedicated and versatile chamber musician, performing on both modern and period instruments with equal skill, van den Brink is a prolific participant in many international festivals, both as a player and as a teacher.
He holds a teaching position at the Conservatorium of Amsterdam.Decades ago he fell in love with Hydra, and since a few years he owns a house in Kamini.
JULIEN REYNOLDS
Conductor Julian Reynolds enjoys a highly successful international career both in opera and in concert repertoire. Highlights of recent seasons have included engagements at the Netherlands Opera for Il barbiere di Siviglia and Norma, (available on DVD on Opus Arte) in Sankt Gallen for Tosca, Norma, and Hänsel und Gretel, at the Grand Théâtre de la Ville in Luxembourg with Il barbiere di Seviglia, and acclaimed performances of Puccini’s Il trittico in Modena, Ferrara, and Piacenza. He made his debut at Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Bruxelles with Elisabetta Regina d’Inghliterra.
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In 1986, Julian Reynolds was appointed Assistant Music Director at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam, conducting Bluebeard’s Castle, Mitridate, Le nozze di Figaro, L’italiana in Algeri, Luisa Miller, and L’elisir d’amore, among others. During his tenure at the Netherlands Opera, he worked with other opera companies in the country, most notably in productions of Madama Butterfly and The Cunning Little Vixen for Opera Zuid.
Julian Reynolds made his German debut with Otello at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, followed by a new production of Luisa Miller with the Staatstheater Mainz. He has been a regular guest conductor with the Kirov Opera in the Maryinsky Theatre St. Petersburg, making his debut with the company conducting La traviata, and went on to lead a new production of Verdi’s Don Carlos, followed by Samson et Dalila, and the Kirov’s first ever production of Le nozze di Figaro.
He made his North American debut at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto with L’italiana in Algeri. In the same season, he made his Wexford Opera Festival debut with Weinberger’s Svanda dudák, the recording of which is available on Naxos. He has led Carmen at both the Teatro Regio di Parma and at the Arena di Verona, and Adelina at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and made his debut on the Sankt Gallen podium with La Cenerentola and Otello, and conducted Lucrezia Borgia at the Festivales de Musica de Castillon.
Julian Reynolds has been a guest conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Aukland Philharmonia, Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne International Festival, Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, and the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, where he led his own orchestration of Lieder by Alma Mahler. He has recorded these with soprano Charlotte Margiono on the Globe label.
A regularly requested recital accompanist, Julian Reynolds has worked extensively with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Susan Graham, and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, both in recital and as conductor.
His recordings include CDs of Rossini Overtures, Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye, Saint-Saens’ Le Carnaval des animaux and several Rossini rarities, for Globe Records. As a pianist he has recorded the complete works for piano and violin of Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann with violinist Johannes Leertouwer.