For Immediate Release: Press Contacts: February 22, 2016 Eileen Chambers/CSO 312.294.3092 Beth Silverman/The Silverman Group, Inc. 312.932.9950 Photos Available By Request [email protected]
PIANIST LISE DE LA SALLE MAKES SYMPHONY CENTER DEBUT IN PIANO SERIES PROGRAM OF WORKS BY LISZT, RAVEL AND BACH
Sunday, March 6, at 3:00 p.m.
CHICAGO—French pianist Lise de la Salle makes her Symphony Center debut on the Symphony Center Presents PowerShares QQQ Piano series on Sunday, March 6 at 3:00 p.m. One of the most promising young artists in the international classical piano scene, de la Salle performs a program of works by Bach and Ravel, as well as a rich assortment of showpieces by Liszt.
The program opens with an exceptionally challenging arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004, arranged for solo piano by Ferruccio Busoni in 1893. Following is Ravel’s imaginative and technically spectacular Gaspard de la nuit, described by the composer as “three romantic poems of transcendental virtuosity.” De la Salle, who has featured Liszt extensively in her discography, will complete her program with a tour de force of works by the composer, including his rousing Dante Sonata, and arrangements of themes by Mozart, Schumann, Schubert, and Wagner including the “Lacrimosa” from Mozart's Requiem and Isolde's “Liebestod” from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde.
Lise de la Salle, at 27, has achieved an impressive international career garnering praise as a musician of uncommon sensibility and maturity. A native of France, de la Salle was propelled to global fame after recording a Bach/Liszt album at the age of 16, which was selected as "Recording of the Month" by Gramophone Magazine. She was likewise recognized for a 2008 recording of the first concertos of Liszt, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. De la Salle has already played with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the London Symphony.
Her most recent recording, an all-Rachmaninov album with Fabio Luisi and the Zurich Opera Orchestra, was released in the fall of 2015. In addition to her Symphony Center appearance, de
la Salle’s other upcoming solo engagements this season include those at the Jersey Arts Centre in the UK; the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Turin (Italy); the Stadttheater in Olten (Switzerland); and the Festsaal Palast der Wartburg in Eisenach (Germany).
Tickets for all Symphony Center Presents PowerShares QQQ Piano series concerts can be purchased by phone at 800-223-7114 or 312-294-3000; online at cso.org, or at the Symphony Center box office: 220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60604.
Discounted student tickets for select concerts can be purchased, subject to availability, online in advance or at the box office on the day of the concert. For group rates, please call 312-294- 3040.
Artists, programs and prices are subject to change.
The SCP PowerShares QQQ Piano series is sponsored by PowerShares QQQ.
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Symphony Center Presents Sunday, March 6, 2016, 3:00 p.m. PowerShares QQQ Piano Lise de la Salle, piano
BACH Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in arr. BUSONI D Minor, BWV 1004 RAVEL Gaspard de la nuit LISZT Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem, K. 626 LISZT Liebeslied on Widmung from Schumann’s Myrthen, Op. 25 LISZT Frühlingsnacht from Schumann's Liederkreis, Op. 39 LISZT Ständchen from Schubert's Schwanengesang, D. 957 LISZT Isolde's Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde LISZT Dante Sonata
Tickets: $21-$81
Lise de la Salle In just a few years, through her international concert appearances and her award-winning Naïve recordings, 26 year-old Lise de la Salle has established a reputation as one of today's most exciting young artists, and as a musician of uncommon sensibility and maturity. Her playing inspired a Washington Post critic to write, “For much of the concert, the audience had to remember to breathe...the exhilaration didn’t let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard.”
A native of France, now living in Paris, de la Salle first came to international attention in 2005, at the age of 16, with a Bach/Liszt recording that was selected as "Recording of the Month" by Gramophone Magazine. De la Salle, who records exclusively with the label Naïve, was then similarly recognized in 2008 for her recording of Liszt’s, Prokofiev’s and Shostakovich’s first concertos – a remarkable feat for someone only 20 years old. Her most recent recording offers works of Schumann, including Kinderszenen and the C Major Fantasy, which was released in 2014.
De la Salle has played with many of the world's leading orchestras and conductors. She most recently made her London Symphony Orchestra debut with Fabio Luisi, who had invited her to become the first Artist-in-Residence of the Zurich Opera in 2014. Together, they will perform the entire piano and orchestra works of Rachmaninoff. She has also appeared frequently with the Maestro and the Vienna Symphony, including a performance in New York on the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center. In this country, de la Salle has played with the Boston Symphony, the CSO at the Ravinia Festival, San Francisco Symphony and three times with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, among others. In her second appearance with the Minnesota Orchestra, she played the Gershwin Concerto in F, a performance that inspired one critic to exclaim that “she might just be the most exciting young artist in classical music right now.”
This past 2014-2015 season, de la Salle could be heard with Jiri Belohlavek and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra, and on tour with Sir Neville Marriner and the Staatskapelle Weimar. In the United States, she made her fourth appearance with Vasily Petrenko and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony, Roberto Abbado and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Eugene Tzigane and the New Jersey Symphony.
A sought-after recitalist, she has been presented to enthusiastic audiences and critics in major series in New York, Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto, and at the Philharmonie in Berlin, Wigmore Hall in London and the Louvre in Paris. De la Salle also takes pleasure in educational outreach and conducts master classes in many of the cities in which she performs.
Her critically acclaimed Naive CDs include an all-Chopin disc with a live recording of the Piano Concerto 2, Opus 2 with Fabio Luisi conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the Four Ballades. In May 2011, Naïve issued her sixth recording, released in celebration of Liszt’s Bicentennial. The recording includes both original Liszt compositions, such as the Ballade No. 2 in b minor, Funerailles, and the Dante Sonata, and Liszt’s transcriptions of others’ pieces, such as Mozart’s Lacrymosa and Schubert’s Ständchen. Diapason Magazine named the album the "Diapason D'or", and was the "Editor's Choice" in Gramophone Magazine, stating that "...the wonderfully gifted 23-year-old Lise de la Salle gives us a Liszt recital of astonishing strength, poetry, and, for one so young, musical maturity."
Born in Cherbourg, France in 1988, de la Salle was surrounded by music from her earliest childhood. She began studying the piano at the age of four and gave her first concert at nine in a live broadcast on Radio-France. When she was eleven, de la Salle received special permission to enter the Paris Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique to study with Pierre Réach. At 13, she made her concerto debut with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in Avignon, and her Paris recital debut at the Louvre before going on tour with the Orchestre National d’Ile de France playing Haydn’s Concerto in D Major. De la Salle graduated in 2001 and subsequently enrolled in the postgraduate cycle with Bruno Rigutto. Since 1997, she has worked closely with Pascal Nemirovski, and also studied with Genevieve Joy-Dutilleux.
In 2003, de la Salle won the European Young Concert Artists Auditions in Paris and in 2004 she won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. Later that year, the organization presented both her New York and Washington, DC debuts. At the Ettlingen International Competition in Germany, de la Salle won First Prize and the Bärenreiter Award. She has also won First Prize in many French piano competitions, including the Steinway, Sucy, Vulaines, and Radio-France Competitions. In 2003, she won the “Groupe Banque Populaire Natexis” Prize, for which she received a three-year scholarship. www.lisedelasalle.com
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