Classical Piano Music!

From today, audiences can enjoy the First Round performances of the 24 competitors who were selected from among 68 First Round pianists to go through to the next round in Leeds in September. Their progress can then be followed through 8 days of free live webcasts of the final rounds in Leeds between 6 to 15 September. Read more...

Zlata Chochieva is a unique pianist of the highest calibre. From Salzburg, where she lives and teaches at the Mozarteum, she enchants music-lovers all over the world with her exceptional artistry, combining natural musical expression with outstanding and self-evident technical ability. Read more...

Poised with a contemporary air and pure timeless beauty, the creations of piano bench designer and maker Mario Koch were conspicuously present at the Frankfurt Musikmesse 2018. Under the trademark MAKONI visitors were given a chance to indulge in a different world of the piano’s best friend and companion; the piano bench. Read more...

From transcriptions by Liszt and Busoni to new commissions from her own contemporaries, the brilliant young French pianist Lise de la Salle tells IP how J S Bach has inspired her programming across three centuries of piano repertoire; the revolutionary role of the piano in the French protests of 1968; and do technical terms deter listeners? Read more...

Federico Colli just released his first album of sixteen Scarlatti Piano Sonatas on Chandos Records. Colli has emerged as one of the most interesting pianists of his generation after victories in the Salzburg Mozart Competition and the 2012 edition of the Leeds International Piano Competition. Read more...

This April, Piano Street will be exhibiting at Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany. The exhibition will take place at the Messe Frankfurt Convention Centre and is the world’s biggest trade show for musical instruments, sheet music, music production and marketing. Piano Street will be showing the digital services available for individuals and for institutions. Read more...

Warner Classics has recently contributed to both a distant and a close look on Claude Debussy. Their 33-disc set aims to include everything Debussy wrote, from his earliest compositions of 1879-80 to the late sonatas composed during the first world war. As a part of the project Warner Classics has produced a three-part documentary series named ”In the Footsteps of Debussy”. Read more...

The great French composer Achille-Claude Debussy died 100 years ago, on March 25 in Paris. Debussy is considered one of the fathers of modern music and the most influential of all French composers. From Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, Clair de lune has emerged as the most beloved and appreciated piece of the suite appreciated by pianists on all levels. From the beautiful interiors of Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, Rome we hear Italian pianist Alessandra Ammara play the piece. Read more...

2018-08-16When Chopin was vacationing on Majorca during 1838 and early 1839, he did a lot of work on a slapdash upright piano that vexed George Sand as she heard him toil away on it. Kildea expertly draws the reader into their parlor where the seeds of discontent bloomed. Chopin, indeed, split from his long-time lover upon his return to the European mainland. Read more at spectator.co.uk

2018-08-15Olafur Arnalds saw a player piano in Asia. It was a simple machine and looked vaguely silly to him. Still, it inspired him to collaborate with a friend on building a computer-driven system. Arnalds does not consider it mere artificial intelligence, however. He thinks of it as an instrument that he plays beforehand and that plays itself later. Read more at npr.org

2018-08-14Rachel Z, who is a distinguished faculty member at College for the Performing Arts New School University, holds her own among the other great jazz pianists of the 21st century. She is at once lyrical and powerful and is adept at a variety of styles. Her 10 albums are a coffee table book in the living room of greatness. Read more at npr.org

2018-08-13Even America's premier brand of pianos might be "made in China". The Chinese conglomerate Poly Group is looking to buy Steinway for a reputed $1 billion. The company is 36 years old this year, and although it is primarily a defense contractor, it has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra and Lang Lang in the past. Read more at bloomberg.com

2018-08-12The Dichters have played concerts together for the entirety of their 50-year marriage. They have always stayed true to the music on the page, and Misha is perplexed and annoyed by the modern trend to add flourishes to classical pieces that aren't in the score. He maintains that this is the end of musicianship and cautions students that they should compose if they want to do such things. Read more at aspentimes.com

2018-08-11Khatia Buniatishvili played Rachmaninoff's famous second concerto with such fire and tenderness that patrons on the observation deck 906 feet above could probably have enjoyed the concert as much as the throngs on the ground. Read more at agenda.ge

2018-08-10Jonathan Biss will join Mitsuko Uchida as Co-Artistic Director of the legendary Marlboro Music Festival. Read more at philly.com

2018-08-10With a Van Cliburn Competition notch in his piano bench, Sunwoo Yekwon is happy to be able now to afford his own grand piano. When he plays, however, he seeks to embody quiet solitude and sadness because he feels those are the mightiest emotions. Read more at yonhapnews.co.kr