The second annual New Zealand International Piano Festival (NZIPF) will be held in April 2012.
This exciting event brings together concert pianists from all over the globe, to perform solo and duo piano recitals at the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber - and also provide a supreme educational experience for New Zealand’s up and coming musicians through masterclasses.
Festival dates - NZIPF 2012
Saturday 21st April Richard Mapp & Emma Sayers
Sunday 22nd April Hyoung-Joon Chang
Tuesday 24th April Sofya Gulyak
Wednesday 25th April Jian Liu
Thursday 26th April Oleg Stepanov & Natasha Vlassenko
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Saturday 21st April - Richard Mapp & Emma Sayers
Programme :
Schubert - Allegro in A minor (Lebenssturme)
Ken Young – Variations on a Prayer
Samuel Barber - three pieces from Souvenirs
Poulenc - Sonata
Interval
Ken Young - Fantasy for two pianos
Bartok - Six pieces from Mikrokosmos
Lutoslawski - Variations on a theme of Paganini
When you go to a concert by Richard Mapp and Emma Sayers, you get not just two outstanding single pianists, but also a pair of piano-duettists, and, when pianos permit, a first-class piano duo team.
Richard and Emma have been working together as pianists and recitalists for close to ten years, and are both currently on the staff at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington. They are in great demand not only as a duo/duet ensemble but also as soloists, as accompanists, and as performers of high stature in a variety of chamber music ensembles.
These two pianists are a great choice for ringing up the curtain on this year’s NZIPF programmes, and they’ve chosen a programme that shows them in two allied roles. In the first half, the music will be all piano-duet, and following the interval and the set-up of a second Steinway grand, there will be three varied pieces for piano duo.
As well as Schubert’s Lebensstürme movement - a rarely heard but powerful sonata-piece for four hands - Richard and Emma are offering Poulenc’s sardonic “Duet Sonata” and three witty items by the American composer Samuel Barber.
The Piano Duo works in the second half are by Bartók (from Mikrokosmos), and a tightly compressed set of flamboyant variations on a Paganini theme by Polish composer Lutoslawski, written when he was hiding from Nazi occupying forces during WW2.
Two special items will be excitingly unknown for many. Not only do they offer new experiences, but they help to confirm the NZIPF as a New Zealand event, since they are by Wellington composer/conductor Kenneth Young. The first is Variations on a Prayer for piano-duet (“a wonderfully evocative piece” according to John Button of The Dominion Post) and the second is called Fantasy and is for two pianos. “The Fantasy of the title,” says Young, “reflects the fact that I simply let my imagination run wild... I really enjoyed writing the piece... and I hope the audience will too.”
The bet is that the audience will love it.
“Beautifully integrated playing...” The Dominion Post
Visit www.nzipf.com
Blog post by Sharon Seeto
Lewis Eady Charitable Trust Administrator
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