Thursday, 6 June 2013
Odeion
19:30

Since the release of his recording of the Chopin Piano Concertos, Vassily Primakov has been hailed as a pianist of world class importance.  Deseret News (Salt Lake City) wrote: “…a pianist's pianist.  He is a giant of the keyboard.”  Gramophone wrote: “Primakov's empathy with Chopin's spirit could hardly be more complete”, and the American Record Guide stated: “This is a great Chopin pianist.  Primakov's timing is perfect.”  MusicWeb-International called the CD “one of the great Chopin recordings of recent times.  These are performances of extraordinary power and beauty”.  In 1999, as teenaged prizewinner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Primakov was praised by Donald Rosenberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “How many pianists can make a line sing as the 19-year-old Moscow native did on this occasion?”

Vassily entered Moscow's Central Special Music School at the age of eleven as a pupil of Vera Gornostaeva.  He won first prize in the Rachmaninoff International Young Artist Competition.  At seventeen he pursued his studies at the Juilliard School with the noted pianist, Jerome Lowenthal.  At Juilliard he won the William Petschek Piano Recital Award, which presented his debut recital at Alice Trully Hall.  While he was a student there, Primakov was placed among the top two laureates of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, and won both the silver medal and the Audience Prize in the 2002 Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition.  He won first prize in the 2002 Young Concert Artists (YCA) International Auditions.   In 2007 he was named the Classical Recording Foundation's Young Artist of the Year.  In 2009, Primakov’s Chopin Mazurkas recording was named “Best of the Year” by National Public Radio and that same year he began recording Mozart’s 27 piano concertos in Denmark.  BBC Music Magazine (November 2010) praised the first volume of Primakov’s Mozart Concertos: “The piano playing is of exceptional quality: refined, multi-coloured, elegant of phrase and immaculately balanced, both in itself and in relation to the effortlessly stylish orchestra…By almost every objective criterion, Vassily Primakov is a Mozartian to the manner born, fit to stand as a role model to a new generation.”

Vassily has released numerous recordings for Bridge Records which include works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Chopin, Dvorak, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Phillip Glass, Arlene Sierra and Roul Ruders.

In 2011, Vassily, along with his duo partner, Natalia Lavrova, established a new and vibrant record company, L.P. Classics, Inc.  Their first release was Anton Arensky: Four Suites for Two Pianos. Most recently they released Primakov's Live in Concert Album that includes works by Medtner, Schumann, Brahms' Handel Variations and Ravel's La Valse.  

Programme:

Chopin: Polonaise in C-sharp minor, Op. 26, sNo.1
Chopin: 12 Selected Mazurkas 
Chopin: Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53 "Heroic"
Van Eeden: Sonata No. 5 in B-flat minor, BVE 74 (2013) 
Scriabin: Prelude for the left hand in C-sharp minor, Op. 9, No.1
Scriabin: Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp major, Op. 30
Rachmaninoff: Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36 (revised version)

Admission:

R130 (adults), R90 (pensioners), R50 (students and learners), R50 (group booking of 10+)
Tickets available at Computicket.

Enquiries:       

Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 401 2504)