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Playwright Ishy Din on his new play, Champion inspired by the 1977 visit of celebrated boxer, Muhammed Ali, to South Shields. Art historian Frances Spalding and curator Eleanor Bradley on artist Sheila Fell - the subject of a major exhibition at Tullie Museum and Art Gallery. As a new biography of concert pianist Dame Myra Hess is published, its author Jessica Duchen, and Adam Gatehouse, artistic director of the Leeds International Piano Competition, discuss Dame Myra's distinctive playing style and how it compares to playing styles of today.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu
This Thoroughly Good Classical Music Podcast episode features Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu who, on the 16th August releases her recording of Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor (pared the Grieg Piano Concerto). She's also playing a major role in the Leeds International Piano Competition later this year giving the first Alexandra Dariescu Award for the outstanding performance of music by a female composer - Clara Schumann's concerto is one of the concerto that finalists can select for the Concerto Final. The Leeds gets underway on 11 September, with the Finals staged on 20 and 21 September. Alexandra joins Petroc Trelawny presenting the Leeds on Medici TV.
Mussorgsky, shaken by the passing of his friend, the artist Victor Hartmann, turned his grief into music, composing his lavishly evocative 10-movement suite inspired by Hartmann's sketches. Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Ravel's iconic orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition. 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition winner Eric Lu joins the CSO in Mozart's dark-hued final piano concerto. The program opens with Franck's supernatural thriller The Accursed Huntsman. Pianist Maurizio Pollini has withdrawn from this engagement; a statement from his management notes that “Maurizio Pollini is very disappointed to announce that for medical reasons, he is required to cancel his upcoming American tour.” Ticket holders are invited to a free preconcert conversation featuring Carl Grapentine in Orchestra Hall 75 minutes before the performance. The conversation will last approximately 30 minutes. No additional tickets required. Learn more: cso.org/performances/22-23/cso-classical/muti-conducts-pictures-from-an-exhibition
Not only just a review of the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition, but also a wider examination of the issues brought up by competition in music, the role of music in communities, interviews with some of my favourite competitors including the winner Alim Beisembayev, audio clips from the unofficially linked Leeds Pub Piano Competition event, discussion with the competitors about how they deal with the nerves and pressures of competitions, and much more! Notes: Thank you to the pianists who gave me their valuable time for interviews: Alim Beisembayev Ariel Lanyi Yuzhang Li Elizaveta Kliuchereva Priscilla Navarro Thanks to creative producers Dave Cartwright & Sam Berrill for giving me their valuable time for the interview after the competition, and thanks to Clare Teal for the interview in the interval of the Leeds Pub Piano Competition Thanks and apologies if I interviewed you and there wasn't room in this podcast episode to include it- and I will try to upload the full interviews with the pianists in the coming weeks Thank you to the competition organisers and staff for their generosity, time and help! Intro-outro music for this episode is Alim Beisembayev playing Beethoven Sonata Op .111 in the second round Links: The website of the Leeds International Piano Competition: https://www.leedspiano.com/ Medici TV's webpage for their coverage of all the events from The Leeds where you can catch up with all the performances: https://leedspiano.medici.tv/en/ Medici's YouTube channel where you can also watch all the performances and coverage: https://www.youtube.com/user/medicitv Transcript: Here's the script I wrote myself to read from which I mostly managed to keep to, although I did go a bit 'off script' at times! Hello and welcome to the heart of the piano podcast where we are exploring the world of piano. In this episode, I'll be bringing you my experience of the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition, known informally as ‘The Leeds', and exploring some of the wider issues that competition in music brings up. Some of my favourite pianists have been finalists of The Leeds in past years, and in fact the competition was one of the main factors in launching the careers of famous names such as: Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu, Andras Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Dmitri Alexeev, Ilya Itin, Artur Pizarro, Kathryn Stott, Noriko Ogawa, Louis Lortie, Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, and many more household names in the world of classical pianists. It seems to come as a huge shock to most people in Leeds that there is a regular local event happening every 3 years that is regarded as one of the most important events in the international world of professional piano- but don't just take my word for it- during the competition I asked some of the competitors why they had entered The Leeds- this is what Alim Beisembayev said who went on to become the winner: Clip And Elizaveta Kliuchereva who was in the semifinals: Clip And Ariel Lanyi who was the 3rd prize winner: Clip And semifinalist Priscilla Navarro: Clip A topic that's bound to come up in a review of a major music competition is about the controversy of whether musicians should take part in competitions and about whether we should take them seriously. There are plenty of people who very rigidly think that competitions for musicians are a very bad thing to be avoided. I personally think they can be a useful challenge for musicians, as long as the challenge is how to be deeply musical under pressure rather than get caught up in being too serious about competition and ego- this is a skill all professional musicians need to learn at some point or another! Ultimately, we can't really say that one amazing musician is better than another one- and personal subjective taste is going to vary enormously. I enjoyed chatting to people sitting near to me at every stage of the competiti...
The Leeds International Piano Competition is one of the top 3 most important and prestigious piano competitions in the world, with previous finalists such as Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, András Schiff... and dozens more names that anybody familiar with classical pianists will recognise instantly as being in the top row of the best, most important, [...]
Continuation of the interview with Benjamin Frith, British classical pianist with strong links to the Leeds International Piano Competition- having been a competitor at 'The Leeds' twice, and a student with Dame Fanny Waterman since an early age. He won several big awards early in his career, and his recordings are highly regarded- five of his [...]
Benjamin Frith is a British classical pianist with strong links to the Leeds International Piano Competition- having been a competitor at 'The Leeds' twice, and a student with Dame Fanny Waterman since an early age. He won several big awards early in his career, and his recordings are highly regarded- five of his discs are [...]
Katie Derham presents the In Tune Highlights: a selection of musical guests. Including Nicky Spence and William Vann talking about and singing Parry, Eric Lu winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition, an exclusive walk around the Royal Opera House Open Up project and Indian slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya.
Sounds from the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition, including an exclusive tour of The Cobbe Collection of antique pianos, masterclasses with Lars Vogt and Imogen Cooper, and reflections on the final performances from Aljoras Jurinic, Anna Geniushene, Mario Haring, XinyuanWang, and winner Eric Lu.
Touching The Void. Memoir, documentary, now theatre performance - at the Bristol Old Vic. Written by David Greig , it's an adaptation of Joe Simpson's bestselling 1988 mountaineering memoir and the subsequent 2003 docu-drama detailing Simpson's disastrous 1985 attempt to make a first ascent of a mountain in the Andes. Theatre director Tom Morris talks to Kirsty about the challenges of transferring the story to the stage. And as the Bristol Old Vic prepares to re-open after a major refurbishment, he describes how the new design aims to mark the theatre's history and slave trade past and welcome in new audiences.Crazy Rich Asians is a box office hit in the US about a young Chinese-American woman who goes to a wedding in Singapore and encounters the fabulously wealthy Chinese family of her boyfriend. Its star Constance Wu talks to Kirsty about the issues it raises on the difference between Asian and American culture and the tricky question of stereotyping.Crazy Rich Asians is based on a best-selling book Kevin Kwan of the same name satirizing Singapore's super-rich. Depictions of the wealthy in novels is nothing new as literary critic Toby Lichtig explains as he gives is a potted history of rich-lit.As this year's Leeds International Piano Competition reaches the finals without a British finalist, concert pianist Murray McLachlan, Chair of the European Piano Teachers Association (UK) and Artistic Director of Chetham's International Summer School and Festival for Pianists, discusses whether British piano teaching is making the grade.
In this video, pianist Alexander Panfilov performs the first six variations of Mozart’s Twelve Variations on ‘Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman’. Alexander is a postgraduate student at the Royal Northern College of Music and will be performing in the Leeds International Piano Competition.
Transcript -- In this video, pianist Alexander Panfilov performs the first six variations of Mozart’s Twelve Variations on ‘Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman’. Alexander is a postgraduate student at the Royal Northern College of Music and will be performing in the Leeds International Piano Competition.