PLUCK-PLUCK! Eva Schad (Harpsichord) & Oliver Fartach-Naini (Guitar) in concert

Internationally acclaimed artists Eva Schad (harpsichord) and Oliver Fartach-Naini (guitar) have converged their musical prowess to explore the rare combination and guitar and harpsichord, two instruments that come to life through the plucking of strings.

Their eclectic recital programme will feature music by Baroque luminaries Antonio Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlatti and Johann Sebastian Bach as well as Classical composer Luigi Boccherini and more recent works by Brazilian composer Dilermando Reis and the Australian premiere of a new composition that Argentinian composer Máximo Diego Pujol has just written for this project.

Praised by The Australian as a ‘musician of the very top order’ and by Fanfare Magazine as ‘an artist beyond category’, Oliver Fartach-Naini is a keen collaborator and acclaimed soloist with 11 international album releases to his name. In January 2020 US magazine CLASSICAL GUITAR voted his solo album SUITE LATINA into its list of ‘Top Ten Classical Guitar Albums of 2019’. Oliver Fartach-Naini holds performance degrees from the University of the Arts Berlin, the Academy of Music and Theatre Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig and a PhD from the University of Adelaide. A passionate educator, he is author of the Australian Music Examination Board’s current AMEB classical guitar syllabus, which includes 7 graded repertoire books and a 1000-work repertoire list. He is associate director of postgraduate coursework programmes at the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium of Music where he also directs a thriving classical guitar programme. Oliver Fartach-Naini endorses La Bella strings.

German organist and harpsichordist Eva Schad completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in church music as well as harpsichord and organ with Jon Laukvik in Stuttgart, Wolfgang Zerer in Hamburg and Michael Radulescu in Vienna. Acclaimed for her ‘outstanding artistry characterised by delicacy, wit and power’ (Thüringer Allgemeine) Eva Shad has been in high demand, both nationally and internationally, ever since winning the prestigious International Organ Competition ‘Johann Sebastian Bach’ in Luzern in 1992. In 1995 Eva Schad was appointed cantor of Christuskirche Bremerhaven where Eva continues to teach church music courses and instrumental lessons as well as directing several choirs including the Evangelische Stadtkantorei Bremerhaven and the Bremerhavener Kammerchor. Eva is curator of various concert series and has recorded four solo albums, performing on historic organs in Dedesdorf, Bremerhaven and Pellworm.