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2024-01-14

Composer Arnold Bax's Piano Gems

The piano had always been his favourite instrument, and he was known for astonishing audiences by being able to read a full orchestral score at sight at the piano. He composed a good deal of music for the piano, and evocative piano miniatures were always part of his repertoire.
Read more at interlude.hk

2024-01-13

Pianist's Ligeti Christmas

Corey Hamm recalls puzzling over Ligeti's messy, handwritten notation, but took the Etudes seriously enough that they were the topic of his doctoral dissertation. Simultaneously, he was familiarizing himself with the Piano Concerto, memorizing two of its five movements to play at piano competitions.
Read more at createastir.ca

2024-01-12

Pianist Appointed Chief Conductor

Kim Sun-wook became the first Asian and youngest winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006. In the past three years, he has focused on his conducting opportunities while narrowing his piano repertoire to about seven composers.
Read more at koreaherald.com

2024-01-11

Pianist Lewis on Beethoven's Concertos

With Beethoven being central to Lewis' repertoire, the 250th anniversary of the composers' birth in 2020 saw the English pianist touring the world for performances like this complete set of Beethoven Concertos, and he took part in the BBC's documentary "Being Beethoven".
Read more at rnz.co.nz

2024-01-11

A New Concerto for Manny

The MAX Concerto is written for and dedicated to the American pianist Emanuel Ax - known among friends as "Manny Ax", resulting in the title MAX. Ax gave the European premiere performance of Hillborg's second piano concerto on January 10 in Stockholm.
Read more at fabermusic.com

2024-01-10

Piano Teacher in Hall of Fame

Fort Worth piano teacher Sara Doan now has her name on the wall of the historic Steinway & Sons factory in New York City. She is one of 67 instructors recently inducted into the company’s teacher hall of fame.
Read more at fortworthreport.org

2024-01-09

The Cyborg Pianist

Zubin Kanga describes himself as a pianist, composer and technologist. In his latest work, "Cyborg Pianist", which premiered at Kings Place, London, he commissioned composers to create new works that fused cutting-edge technology with classical piano.
Read more at newscientist.com

2024-01-08

The Very "Piano Man" and Beethoven

Steinway Artist Billy Joel has sold more than 150 million records and is among the most popular singer-songwriters in the world. Joel, despite his myriad influences, now listens mainly to classical music.
Read more at steinway.com

2024-01-06

Pianist Poon in Conversation

Tiffany Poon's debut solo album "Diaries" is a deep dive into the music of Schumann; what his music means to her, and how Schumann's music and philosophy influence her own artistry and view of the world today.
Read more at interlude.hk

2024-01-05

Classical Rock Stars

Music must be part of the success of Lisztomania, Lindomania, Paddymania, Beatlemania and similar crazes. "Performing isn't just about playing a piece of music," he says. "It's about communication between human beings..."
Read more at steinway.com

2024-01-05

Pollini Celebrates 82

At 18, Maurizo Pollini emerged victorious in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw back in 1960. Out of the 89 participants, he stood as the youngest. "I grew up in a house with art and artists. Old works and modern works co-existed together as part of life."
Read more at interlude.hk

2024-01-04

Top Pianists on Forgotten Piano Concertos

Since the invention of the piano in the late 17th century, composers have pitted the instrument against the might of the orchestra to create some of music's greatest works. But how many neglected masterpieces are there in the piano concerto repertoire?
Read more at classical-music.com

2024-01-03

Shocked by Success

Jamie Duffy was studying politics in Belfast when he released his first single, "Solas". The Irish pianist whose blend of classical and trad has topped charts around the world said his life has been "turned upside down" by the success.
Read more at bbc.com

2024-01-03

A Moonlight Sonata Deep Dive

Composed in 1801, Beethoven's Sonata No 14 is the second of the two works comprising his Op 27 that are designated as sonatas "quasi una fantasia". Beethoven himself had nothing to do with its Moonlight sobriquet, which first appeared on printed editions five years after the composer's death.
Read more at gramophone.co.uk

2024-01-02

The Man Behind Islamey

Mily Balakirev met Mikhail Glinka 1855 who quickly realised that Balakirev had considerable musical talent, but he considered his compositional technique defective. There were no music textbooks in Russian at the time, and Balakirev's German was barely adequate.
Read more at interlude.hk

2024-01-01

Kim's Brahms Album Debut

An unusual and daring choice for a debut recording, pianist Julian Jaeyoung Kim delivers forceful and incisive readings of two major and thorny works by Johannes Brahms.
Read more at interlude.hk

2023-12-31

Geniusas on Rachmaninoff's First Sonata

Lukas Geniusas has made the first recording of the unpublished original version of Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No 1.
Read more at gramophone.co.uk

2023-12-30

Fanny Mendelssohn in Cinemas

The film, premiered in the UK in October, reveals "the extraordinary story of Fanny, a composer long ignored by the classical music world in favour of her famous brother Felix, who despite being forbidden a musical career persevered, composing 450 works in her short life".
Read more at classical-music.com

2023-12-29

Bavouzet's Haydn Top Rated

In the course of 2023 a select number of big recording projects came to fruition, prime among them Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's complete Haydn piano sonatas.
Read more at ft.com

2023-12-28

Advice From The Maestros

Aspiring pianists would do well to mull over experienced pianists' perspectives and integrate them into their own approach to the instrument. Enjoy five giants suggesting new ways to think about common problems.
Read more at interlude.hk

2023-12-27

Who Plays Piano in "Maestro"?

Actor Bradley Cooper plays legendary American composer Leonard Bernstein in the self-directed movie and the role demands quite a bit of the star. Most notably, it requires him to play the piano, a skill few people realized Cooper possessed.
Read more at thecinemaholic.com

2023-12-26

AI Helps Disabled Pianists

An AI-powered piano made its debut in Tokyo, allowing three musicians with disabilities to perform Beethoven at a Christmas concert.
Read more at borneobulletin.com.bn

2023-12-25

Christmas Piano at King's Cross Station

Is that the sound of reindeer and sleigh bells? No! It's world-famous pianist Lang Lang doing another performance at one of the UK's busiest railway stations in "The Piano At Christmas".
Read more at theguardian.com

2023-12-24

A Lipatti Archive Dive

Dinu Lipatti is justly celebrated for his performances of Bach. He had a remarkable capacity to vary the attack used by different fingers even within the same hand so that the voicing of each line was thoroughly consistent, to a degree rarely heard in other artists.
Read more at thepianofiles.com