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World-renowned Russian conductor Valery Gergiev has invited young British pianist George Harliono to perform with him on 5th August in Vladivostok, Russia along with his Mariinsky Orchestra.

Gergiev, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of The Mariinsky Orchestra and former principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, is set to mark the 135 years since the birth of Igor Stravinsky with a series of performances for the II International Mariinsky Far East Festival in Vladivostok.
Two days of the 30-day festival are devoted to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s most famous compositions, and Gergiev asked Harliono to play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2 with the Mariinsky Orchestra on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. Harliono will be featured in the festival along with some of the world’s highest acclaimed performers including Covent Garden’s prima ballerina Natalia Osipova and Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova.

Harliono, 16, who was born in Hackney, East London now lives in Fen Ditton near Cambridge and studies with Professor Vanessa Latarche, Chair of International Keyboard Studies and Head of Keyboard at the Royal College of Music in London. He also travels regularly to Switzerland to work with his mentor, renowned pianist professor Vovka Ashkenazy and his father Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Of the surprise opportunity Harliono said ‘It is such an honour for me to have been asked to perform with Maestro Gergiev, he really is a world class conductor and I can’t wait to meet him.’

Harliono began studying piano at age six and performed his first one-hour-long solo recital at age nine. Since then he as performed in some of the world’s best known classical music venues including The Royal Albert Hall in London, The Chicago Symphony Centre in the U.S., and The Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in Russia.

Harliono has been accepted to enter The Royal College of Music for a BMUS degree on a full four-year scholarship commencing in September. At 16, he will be one of the youngest students to be accepted onto this course.

The young man is really making a name for himself on the international stage and has a busy schedule with upcoming engagements that include performances with the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Fedoseyev, the Carolina Philharmonic in North Carolina, USA conducted by David Michael Wolff and Orquesta Provincial de Santa Fe in Argentina conducted by Walter Hilgers.

(Source: press release)

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Enrique Granados ( 27 July 1867 – 24 March 1916) wrote piano music, chamber music, songs, “zarzuelas”, and an orchestral tone poem based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, but it is his piano music for which he is best remembered and revered today, and his “Goyescas” suite for piano, premiered in 1911, is one of the cornerstones of the concert repertoire. Inspired by paintings by Francisco Goya, the individual pieces in the suite have evocative titles (“The Maiden and the Nightingale”, “Conversation at the Window”, “The Ballad of Love and Death”), and are deeply romantic, impressionistic and atmospheric in character. Granados admitted to having fallen in love with Goya’s work “the psychology…..and his palette…his quarrels, loves and flatteries” and his reflects his love of the artist’s oeuvre in his lyrical and passionate music.

Listen to the playlist here

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Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and pursue a career in music?

I came to composing by a rather unusual route. I was studying cello at Birmingham Conservatoire and during a musicianship course was asked to compose a piece in the style of Bartok. I quickly realised how much I had enjoyed doing this and within a few weeks had an interview to change onto the composition course. In the following couple of years I became familiar with Mark-Anthony Turnage’s music and this inspired me to keep going and find my own voice. Two years later, after accepting to teach me for my Masters Degree at the Royal College of Music, Mark continued to inspire me, this time in person.

Who or what were the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

My family have been the most significant influence. Without their continual support and understanding I am sure I would not have a career as a composer.

What have been the greatest challenges/frustrations of your career so far?

I find the greatest challenge to be balancing my time between composing and all the other things a composer must do to maintain one’s career. Being able to do this successfully whilst still finding the concentration and imaginative space one needs should not be underestimated.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?

Imagining the sound of the musicians and the process of working together with them on a new piece is something that I find incredibly motivating since this is a highlight of the whole process. When the ideas are flowing, I find the working process of composing very pleasurable.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles and orchestras?

Building a long relationship with a particular ensembles make the experiences of working together all the more pleasurable. Birmingham Contemporary Music Group stands out for me in this regard. I got to know the ensemble and organisation as a student, received opportunities to develop my compositional voice through working with them, and continue to have a strong relationship now in my career as a professional composer. Their virtuosity and brilliance makes every encounter special.

Of which works are you most proud?

When I achieve something in a piece that is ‘new’, adventurous or challenging for me, that is when I am most proud.

How do you work?

I start composing first thing and work through until I feel my concentration diminishing. I work with pencil on paper for much of the process, moving to Sibelius when I feel I have enough of an idea about the piece. I use a keyboard and sometimes my cello too, especially to try things out later on.

Who are your favourite musicians/composers?

My friends. I find nothing more enjoyable that hearing and watching a friend perform or a friends’ music being performed; feeling their sound, expression and interpretation, each time knowing them a little deeper.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

My Proms debut in 2012 with ‘At the Speed of Stillness’. I’ll never forget the feeling of standing on that stage for the first time to take a bow.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring composers?

Write the music that you want to hear.

And performers?

Play music that is being written now, before it is too late.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

Somewhere unexpected.

The composer Charlotte Bray has emerged as a distinctive and outstanding talent of her generation. Exhibiting uninhibited ambition and desire to communicate, her music is exhilarating, inherently vivid, and richly expressive with lyrical intensity. Charlotte studied under Mark Anthony Turnage at the Royal College of Music and previously under Joe Cutler at the Birmingham Conservatoire. She participated in the Britten-Pears Contemporary Composition Course with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Magnus Lindberg, and at the Tanglewood Music Centre with John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, Shulamit Ran and Augusta Read-Thomas.

Read Charlotte’s full biography

(picture © Michael Wickham)

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sjss1

For the musically-inclined there can be few better ways to mark a significant birthday than to gather musicians, friends and family together in celebration, and this was the format for a delightful and varied concert on the 80th birthday of Neil Chaffey, concert artist manager. The concert comprised musicians represented by Neil Chaffey and the programme demonstrated the breadth, variety and individual talents of these artists. And with an audience of family, friends and supporters, the atmosphere at St John’s Smith Square was warm and convivial.

After a rousing rendition of the Largo from Handel’s ‘Xerxes’, performed by Chaffey himself on the magnificent SJSS organ, we remained in the Baroque era for songs and arias by Purcell, Blow, Handel and Monteverdi by The Musicke Company (soprano, countertenor, baroque cello and harpsichord). This provided an elegant first part to the concert and contrasted beautifully with a performance of John McCabe’s Clarinet Sonata. Neil Chaffey and John McCabe first met as students at Manchester University in the mid-1950s and Neil comissioned the sonata in 1969 when he was Artistic Director of the Macclesfield Arts Festival. This haunting work is in various linked sections which together make up a continuous movement, and the individuality of each instrument is given voice (including some interesting effects achieved by plucking the piano’s strimgs) while letting all three work with roughly the same motifs. It was a very committed and absorbing performance of a challenging work.

Another striking contrast came with Gitarrissima, an all-female guitar quintet from Vienna, who played well-known and some lesser-known works arranged for guitar (including the intriguing baby “octave” guitar) with great brio, virtuosity and individuality (their renditions of the Tritschtratsch Polka and Hoe-Down from Copland’s ‘Rodeo’ ballet suite were particularly enjoyable and entertaining).

The second half of the concert was mainly taken up with piano music, opening with an intimate and sensitively nuanced performance of works by Bridge, Schumann and Kapustin by Neil Chaffey’s pianist daughter Alicia. ‘Rosemary’ by Frank Bridge, dedicated to Alicia’s late mother, was particularly poignant, and her approach to Schumann’s Fantasiestucke op.12 demonstrated a clear appreciation of the composer’s shifting moods, from tender and introspective in Des Abends to the extrovert Aufschwung. After the spirited jazzy Kapustin, Alicia was joined by her duo partner Marzia Hudajarova in a charming rendition of Fauré’s ever-popular Dolly Suite.

The final part of the concert featured the Fujita sisters Arisa, Honoka and Megumi, who together make up the Fujita Piano Trio. Initially, Megumi gave a solo performance of three of Chopin’s most popular Etudes (Black Keys, Thirds and Revolutionary) in which she balanced power and richness of sound with a wonderful delicacy of touch. Joined by her sisters, the trio performed Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in c minor, entirely from memory, which made for an intensely musical and impressively concentrated performance, and thrilling close to a most enjoyable concert and a wonderful musical birthday tribute to Neil Chaffey.