LONDON PIANO FESTIVAL © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE Katya Apekisheva & Charles Owen ARTISTIC DIRECTORS London Piano Festival 7 – 9 October 2016 www.londonpianofestival.com Katya Apekisheva ● Alfred Brendel ● Henry Goodman Ronan O’Hora ● Julian Joseph ● Stephen Kovacevich Noriko Ogawa ● Charles Owen ● Lucy Parham Martin Roscoe ● Kathryn Stott ● Dénes Várjon ● Ashley Wass kingsplace.co.uk/lpf | Tickets from £9.50 SUPPORTED BY PATRONS OF THE LPF MEDIA PARTNERS OF THE LPF Imogen Cooper CBE Stephen Hough CBE Sir Jeremy Dixon LPF Flyer APR16.indd 1 21/04/2016 12:20 The London Piano Festival is a brand new celebration of the piano created by Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen. These two highly- LONDON acclaimed pianists have enjoyed extensive performing careers as PIANO soloists, chamber musicians and a widely admired duo partnership. Their shared love of the instrument has led them to curate this weekend FESTIVAL especially for the city’s many piano lovers. With such an enormously diverse, endlessly fascinating repertoire to choose from, the possibilities for exciting programming are endless. This wealth of choice will be reflected throughout the eight concerts that have been created for this inaugural festival. The music will range from Bach, Busoni and Rachmaninoff to Messiaen and Piazzolla. A particular highlight will be the world première of a new two-piano work by the American composer Nico Muhly. To present those works, Charles and Katya have brought together some of the world’s leading pianists. Artists will include the legendary Alfred Brendel lecturing on Liszt, Kathryn Stott performing her signature French repertoire, Noriko Ogawa bringing the joys of piano music to the younger generation, and Julian Joseph treating us to the best of contemporary jazz. At the heart of the festival, a wonderful group of players will explore the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century duo repertoire in a wide-ranging gala, including Stephen Kovacevich in his first Kings Place appearance. Charles Owen & Katya Apekisheva ARTISTIC DIRECTORS FRI 7 OCT SAT 8 OCT Franz Liszt: From Exuberance to JS Bach: Keyboard Partitas Asceticism JS Bach Partita No. 1 in B flat, BWV 825 Liszt Piano Sonata in B minor, S178 Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826 Partita No. 4 in D, BWV 828 Alfred Brendel in conversation with Charles Owen piano Alan Rusbridger 11:30am Alfred Brendel speaker Duration: 80 mins, no interval Dénes Várjon piano £16.50 (incl. tea or coffee) | £9.50 Savers* 7:30pm The six partitas represent the very summit of JS Bach’s Duration: 120 mins (60 mins lecture; 35 mins keyboard creations in the dance suite genre. An performance; 25 mins interview), interval abundance of imaginative invention, breathtaking £16.50 – £24.50 | Savers £9.50* counterpoint and sheer variety fill the traditional Baroque dances with a richness unthinkable by most Alfred Brendel, one of the greatest and most thoughtful other composers of the period. Charles Owen has of all Liszt interpreters, shares his unique insights, studied and performed these Partitas intensely in recent perceptions and opinions into an enduring artistic legacy. years, leading to a CD recording which will be released The evening culminates in a performance of Liszt’s to coincide with this morning’s recital for which he has legendary B Minor Piano Sonata by Dénes Várjon. chosen to play three of the best known. © BALAZS BOROCZ © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE Dénes Várjon Alfred Brendel Charles Owen London Piano Festival 2016 I kingsplace.co.uk/lpf LPF Flyer APR16.indd 2 21/04/2016 12:20 The French F Sharp Connection Two-Piano Gala Fauré Nocturne No. 11 in F-sharp minor, Busoni Fantasia contrappuntistica (O’Hora Op. 104 No. 1 & Roscoe) Debussy Lindaraja; Prélude à l’apres- Ravel Sonatine midi d’un faune (Kovacevich & Owen) Messiaen ‘Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus’ from Vingt Rachmaninoff Suite No. 1 (Owen & Apekisheva) regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus Ravel La Valse (O’Hora & Wass) Dutilleux Piano Sonata (1946–48) Nico Muhly Fast Patterns (Owen & Apekisheva / Kathryn Stott piano World Premiere) Milhaud Le Boeuf sur le Toit (Apekisheva & Wass) 2:00pm Piazzolla Tangos (Stott & Wass) Duration: 60 mins, no interval Grainger Fantasy on Gershwin’s £16.50 | Savers £9.50* Porgy & Bess (Stott & Roscoe) Kathryn Stott has long been admired as an outstanding 7:00pm exponent of the French piano repertoire. For this recital, Duration: 150 mins, with two intervals She will play four multi-faceted works from the twentieth £19.50 – £44.50 | Savers £9.50* century all connected by their shared tonality – the luminous key of F sharp. Tonight’s concert brings together a wonderful group of © NIKOLAJ LUND pianist friends and colleagues to explore the riches, complexities and joys of music for two pianos. The works chosen are almost exclusively from the 20th century and include two French orchestral masterpieces in their initial, pianistically-revealing versions. A number of rarities are present including the extraordinary Fantasia Contrappuntistica by Busoni, a true homage to the works of JS Bach and a piece greatly admired and recorded by Alfred Brendel at the Kathryn Stott beginning of his career. Rachmaninoff’s early Suite No. 1 is by turns Impromptus: Chopin, Scriabin, Fauré hauntingly Russian, quasi Wagnerian and strikingly Scriabin 2 Impromptus, Op. 12 Fauré Impromptu minimalist in its evocation of ecstatic passion, in E flat, Op. 25 / Impromptu in F minor, Op. 31 / obsessional grief and the clangorous sounds of Impromptu in A flat, Op. 34/ Impromptu in F sharp Orthodox Easter festivities. minor, Op. 102 The third part of the concert is designed to add a fun, Scriabin 2 Impromptus, Op. 14 extended encore-like atmosphere to the proceedings with Chopin Impromptu in A flat, Op. 29 / Impromptu Nico Muhly’s Fast Patterns receiving its world premiere. in F sharp, Op. 36 / Impromptu in G flat, Op. 51/ This will be followed by the Roaring Twenties excitement Fantasie-Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op. posth. 66 of Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a selection of sultry Katya Apekisheva piano Piazzola Tangos and will finish with the evergreen melodies of Gershwin’s opera Porgy & Bess arranged for 4:00pm two pianos by the Australian virtuoso Percy Grainger. © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE Duration: 55 mins, no interval © ERIC RICHMOND £16.50 | Savers £9.50* The impromptu form emerged during the heady early days of Romanticism; the sense of improvisation and spontaneous artistic creation seemed to match the spirit of Ronan O’Hora Katya Apekisheva Martin Roscoe OPERAOMNIA ALLEN © PATRICK those times. Katya Apekisheva explores the more familiar © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE Chopin Impromptus together with lesser-known works. © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE Stephen Kovacevich Charles Owen Ashley Wass © DAVID THOMPSON/ © DAVID EMI CLASSICS © NIKOLAJ LUND Katya Apekisheva Kathryn Stott London Piano Festival 2016 I kingsplace.co.uk/lpf LPF Flyer APR16.indd 3 21/04/2016 12:20 SUN 9 OCT Julian Joseph in Concert The Magical World of the Piano – Family Concerts with Noriko Ogawa 2:30pm Duration: 60–80 mins, no interval 10:00am Online Price: £16.50 | Savers £9.50 10–10.30am: For ages 2–5 11–11.30am: For ages 2–5 For the London Piano Festival’s closing concert, Julian 12–12.45am: For Ages 6+ Joseph will create a unique mixture of pieces to include £5.50 Children, £7.50 Adults, £17.50 Family of 4, a selection of his own compositions linked with £20.50 Family of 5 well-loved jazz standards by Gershwin, Ellington and Porter. © ANDREAS NEUMANN Noriko Ogawa takes us on a fascinating and enthralling journey through the rich world of musical styles, emotions and images; ‘music like paintings’, ‘scary pieces’, ‘very fast playing’ and many others will be on the menu. Julian Joseph MULTI-EVENT OFFER Noriko Ogawa SAVE 30% when you book Rêverie: The life and loves of Claude Debussy 3+ London Piano Festival Lucy Parham piano concerts.* Henry Goodman narrator *Excludes the two evening concerts and Sunday family concerts 11:30am Duration: 90 mins, with an interval £16.50 (incl. tea or coff ee) | Savers £9.50* GET 6 ISSUES OF INTERNATIONAL PIANO FOR ONLY £21.45 Rêverie is the fourth ‘Composer Portrait’ from pianist SAVE International Piano NO.37 MAY/JUNE 2016 £5.50 Lucy Parham. A crucial element of Debussy’s complex www.international-piano.com* INSIDE 35%SHEET MUSIC WIN FOUR PIECES FROM BARTÓK’S MIKROKOSMOS AN 8-CD BOX SET OF PUBLISHED BY WIENER URTEXT EDITION ANNIE FISCHER SEE PAGE 49 intellectual and emotional world was an entangled love FROM WARNER CLASSICS MAY/JUNE 2016 MAY/JUNE HUMAN TOUCH Annie Fischer’s steely and Plus Practice makes profound artistry perfect – or does it? life that brought illicit trysts in Jersey, a brush with a Film noir fanatic GOING PEAR-SHAPED Ran Blake Was Erik Satie a visionary, György Kurtág at 90 charlatan or madman? KEY ACCESSORIES Essential new products for pianophiles www.international-piano.com revolver and even a suicide attempt... 05> EVGENY KISSIN 077005 772042 Russian icon 9 © SVEN ARNSTEIN © SVEN ARNSTEIN IPMJ16_001_Cover0504OM.indd 2 06/04/2016 08:56 International Piano is high-quality, independent magazine written for and loved by pianists and discerning fans of piano music. 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