On September 13, Russia’s Sofya Gulyak was awarded the 1st prize and the Princess Mary Gold Medal at the Sixteenth Leeds International Piano Competition – the first woman to achieve this distinction in the history of the competition. She returned to Leeds on Saturday 14 November to perform Mozart Piano Concerto No 18 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. As […]

The 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth falls in 2010. What better excuse could there be for the International Piano Series to celebrate this most magical of pianist-composers? Including celebratory programmes from two of today’s greatest Chopin players, Krystian Zimerman and Maurizio Pollini, this season’s IPS recitals revolve around the composer, along with his contemporaries, peers and successors. Series debuts for […]

Chinese pianist, 22-year-old Yuja Wang thrilled international audiences with her opening performance alongside conductor Claudio Abbado at the Lucerne Festival on August 12. Unique Webcast from Lucerne in August 2009: http://www.medici.tv/#/performance/613/ (free sign up) “Last year, when Claudio Abbado saw me playing Franz Liszt´s Sonata on French television, he compared me to talented female pianist Martha Argerich and then sent […]

Children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published recently in the journal Psychology of Music, published by SAGE. http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/0305735608097248v1 According to authors Joseph M Piro and Camilo Ortiz from Long Island […]

Chandos has been attentive in promoting the orchestral works of Alexandre Tansman, who due to the vagaries of fashion has to a great extent been ignored. They now embark on the piano music and a deeply personal project for soloist Margaret Fingerhut. NEW! Click the album covers to listen to the complete album: (This is a new feature available for […]

The International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg has announced it has discovered two previously unknown compositions written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. “The Department of Research at the International Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg has identified two works, which have long been in the possession of the Foundation, as compositions of the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” the foundation said in a recent statement, without […]

“Mitsuko Uchido is one of perhaps just a handful of classical pianists whose work can justifiably be mentioned alongside the great players of the past – Rachmaninov, Schnabel, Cortot, Michelangeli.” (ABC Radio National, Australia) This season, Uchida is artist-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Her residency includes performances of Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Sir Simon Rattle, and a series of […]

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet took the Instrumental Award at this year’s BBC Music Awards for the third (out of four) volume of his complete Debussy piano music series on the Chandos label. What makes this disc special is not only Bavouzet’s exceptional playing, but the intelligent programming. From what could easily have sounded a “bits and pieces” micellany, Bavouzet has created a […]

Starting May 22, all performances will be streamed live eleven hours per day and then archived for “on-demand” viewing. http://www.cliburn.tv/ The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was first held in 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas. It was created by Fort Worth area teachers in honor of Van Cliburn, who had won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition four years prior with […]

The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Camerata have joined forces to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Joseph Haydn with a series of concerts and events. To promote the events a dedicated website has been created: http://www.haydntheinnovator.co.uk The RNCM Keyboard Festival (8 – 10 May) will feature all of Haydn’s keyboard sonatas. Graham […]

Pianist Stephen Hough’s blog at Telegraph: blogs.telegraph.co.uk/stephen_hough The Guardian said “The most perfect piano playing conceivable…” and The Washington Post “a virtuoso who begins where others leave off.” English pianist Stephen Hough has enjoyed a phenomenal recording career with over forty recordings, many of which have won Gramophone and Diapason awards and Time Magazine’s Classical CD of the Year. He […]

Researchers have discovered the manuscript of a hitherto unknown piano piece by German composer Robert Schumann. Experts speak of “a sensational discovery”. The twenty-four bar piece, named Ahnung, is not dated, but researches say it was written in 1838, the year in which Schumann also composed his famous Kinderszenen. The piece will have its premiere in September 2009, when it […]