Magnificent seven ride to Wearside
by Richard Yates, Evening Chronicle
International stars are set to shine with The Sunderland Pianoforte Society. RICHARD YATES finds out more
THERE is a strong international turn-out starting next week for the new season of recitals organised by one of Wearside’s most enterprising groups of classical music enthusiasts.
Between this month and April next year, the Sunderland Pianoforte Society will display the talents of its own ‘magnificent seven’ instrumentalists who are rapidly forging international careers for themselves.
First in line at the Pottery Room of the city’s Museum & Winter Gardens in Burdon Road next Tuesday will be the 25-year-old Russian pianist Alexander Karpeyev, who studied at the Moscow Conservatoire and at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama until last year
Kareyev’s programme includes sonatas by Mozart, Liszt and Prokofiev, as well as studies by Liszt, Scriabin and Chopin.
On October 7, English pianist James Willshire will be playing works by Chopin, Bach’s Partita No.2 in C minor and Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit.
The highly-acclaimed Spanish virtuoso Javier Negrin will give a November 11 recital of works by Spanish composers, ending with a Chopin scherzo and sonata. In 1995 Negrin moved to London, where he took a Bachelor of Music degree at the Royal College of Music and won nine prizes as well as the prestigious Hopkinson Silver Medal.
French pianist Amandine Savary makes a return visit as the society’s guest on December 2 to perform works by Bach, Franck, Beethoven, Schumann and Dutilleux. Another of the society’s favourites, the 26-year-old English pianist Samantha Ward is back on February 3 with a programme that includes Beethoven’s Six Bagatelles, Chopin’s Nocturnes and pieces by Schumann and Prokofiev. Concerto work by the Czech pianist Martin Kasik has taken him all over Europe, Scandinavia, Japan and the USA with some of the world’s finest orchestras.
His TV and radio performances, as well as his many CD recordings, have won widespread praise. In Sunderland on March 3 he will play works by Janacek and Chopin, concluding with Mussorgsky’s magnificent Pictures at an Exhibition.
The society’s 2008-09 season ends with a recital by one of its enduring favourites – and indisputedly one of the world’s most distinguished solo pianists – Gulsin Onay. A State Artist in her native Turkey.
Her performance on April 7 will include Beethoven’s Sonata Op.27, No.2; two Chopin Nocturnes and Book Two of Debussy’s Images.
Tickets for the recitals on the door, all on Tuesdays starting at 7.15pm, are £10 each, full-time students and unemployed £3, accompanied children 16 and under admitted free. A subscription for all seven recitals is available for £53. Call (0191) 252 5396.
