Ohrid, 25 July 2023 (MIA) – Ohrid Summer Festival is to resume Tuesday with a concert of the Frank Dupree Trio from Germany and a photo exhibition by Aleksandar Tomovski in the St. Sophia Church.

The musical curiosity and virtuosity of the three renowned musicians of the Frank Dupree Trio helps them to erase the limitations of genre and easily transform and enjoy the freedom of joint music making.

Frank Dupre is a musician with endless horizons, an artist that has successfully managed to bridge the differences of jazz and classical music, thus becoming one of the most talented and exceptional musicians of his generation. Frank Dupree was interested in all kinds of music from a very early age- experimenting and studying jazz drums, classical piano and last but not least conducting. He has built a career as a classical pianist, winning the German national competition in 2014 and following to receive the Opus Klassik award in 2018 in the category for Best concert performance of a work from the 20/21 century. In 2022 Dupree is awarded an ICMA award (International Classical Music Award) for his recording of Nikolai Kapustin’s Fourth piano concerto.

Frank Dupree and drummer Meinhard “Obi” Jenne have been collaborating on joint projects since 2009. In 2020 the talented double bass player Jacob Krupp completes the trio and they attract international attention in January 2022 with their debut album “Blueprint” (Capriccio) dedicated to works by the composer Nikolai Kapustin.

The album is voted album of the week at RBB Kultur and is listed as 5 recommended albums of the month by New York Times. Their following album- Salted caramel (Berlin Classics) is released later in 2022 and the trio is joined by trumpet player Simon Höfele and the Goldmund Quartet in their interpretations of classicals works and jazz standards.

The Trio has been invited to perform at the Elbphilharmonie, the Bonn Jazz Festival, the “Kurt Weil” festival in Dessau, as well as on concert tours in Switzerland and Lichtenstein and in concert with the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and all of this is a verification of the international interest in their projects. The Trio’s repertoire spans from anything from Bach and Beethoven to Debussy and Ravel, as well as songs by Kurt Weil and Leonard Bernstein. The jazz standards of musical icons such as Duke Ellington find their way in their concert performances as well as the virtuoso multi-layered works of Nikolai Kapustin. 

A photo exhibition by Aleksandar Tomovski entitled ‘Above the curtains’ is a collection of photographs that continuously follows the author and his fascinations from the stage of the National Opera and Ballet, bringing us closer to ballet and ballerinas.

In ‘Behind the Scenes,’ he captures a wide range of opera and ballet, as well as musical activities created within the framework of the National Opera and Ballet through ‘1001 Stories,’ and through ‘Above the curtains’ to present a unique perspective, which conveys the scene and the stage artists captured from a bird’s eye view.

Aleksandar Tomovski was born in 1985 in Skopje – a software engineer by day, photographer and filmmaker the rest of the time.

His love for photography awakens in nature and in mountain heights, then descends and grows through the city streets and gets closer to people’s everyday life, to gradually focus on capturing the essence of women, which throughout the centuries defines art and is an eternal inspiration of the artists. Perhaps ballet and ballerinas find their place here, with all the elegance and grace they possess, but also expressions through acting, dance, costumes…

Over the years, he has participated in prestigious international competitions and group exhibitions in prominent galleries, acquiring numerous gold, silver, bronze medals, honorary awards, diplomas, recognitions…

At competitions under the patronage of the prestigious FIAP, PSA, etc. Tomovski is a member of jury committees, and for the first time as a representative from N. Macedonia he was invited to take part of the jury of the annual awards of the Russian international competition “35Awards”.

From September 2022, he also acquired the prestigious title of Candidate Master of Photography at the National Photo Union of Macedonia and was named among the top 5 most successful exhibitors of photography for 2022 and 2023. He is currently formally waiting to be awarded the title of Master of Photography.

In 2022, he made his first solo exhibition entitled ‘Behind the Scenes,’ in the Youth Cultural Center – Skopje, and in May 2023, in the lobby of the National Opera and Ballet, he presented the exhibition ‘1001 Stories’ as part of the May Opera Evenings festival.

Photo: Ohrid Summer Festival