John Field is generally regarded as the father and inventor of the Nocturne, and influenced several of the later romantics, most notably Chopin. Rather simple in form, these pieces are mainly concerned with setting up a mood – usually rather melancholy – and a continuous flow of beautiful melody, with plenty of virtuosic embellishments. Both Field and Chopin were in […]

Artist Luke Jerram has put together street pianos installations in various cities. The initiative comes as a reaction of a creative individual to the general rule, prohibiting anyone to play music in public places without special arrangement – no matter how skilful you are at playing your piano or how popular your music is with the audience. Any musician would […]

Stephen Kovacevich (born 1940), who has also been known as Stephen Bishop and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich is an American classical pianist and conductor. He was born in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, to a Croatian father and an American mother. He made his concert debut as a pianist at the age of 11; then, at the age of 18 he moved […]

Even though Isaac Albéniz actually never composed any music for guitar much of his piano music is part of the standard guitar repertoire. Asturias (Leyenda), the fifth movement from Suite Española, opus 47, is one example. He sometimes retitled movements and reused them in later works and this piece is also the first movement (“Prelude”) of his collection ”Cantos de […]

Among the most famous and popular works by Edvard Grieg are the two Peer Gynt Suites and the piano suite From Holberg’s Time. From Holberg’s Time, opus 40 Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754) was a key figure in early Danish literature, but was born in Norway, in Grieg’s native city Bergen. Grieg composed two works for the celebrations of 1884, 200 years […]

On September 13, Russia’s Sofya Gulyak was awarded the 1st prize and the Princess Mary Gold Medal at the Sixteenth Leeds International Piano Competition – the first woman to achieve this distinction in the history of the competition. She returned to Leeds on Saturday 14 November to perform Mozart Piano Concerto No 18 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. As […]

Together with Lang Lang and Yundi Li, Sa Chen (born 1979) is considered as one of today’s most important Chinese pianists and a veritable international sensation. Originally a student of Professor Dan Zhao, China’s most eminent piano teacher, she won first prize in the 1994 China International Piano Competition and fourth place in the 2000 International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition […]