Tchaikovsky The Seasons

MusicGurus, the online music education platform that partners with world
leading artists to create unique interactive lessons, has released Perform Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons” March, April, June and October with pianist Julia Zilberquit, exclusively on musicgurus.com.

In this exciting masterclass, Julia will help you learn how to play her favourite four pieces from Tchaikovsky’s cycle ‘The Seasons’:

● March: Song of the Lark (G minor)
● April: Snowdrop (B-flat major)
● June: Barcarolle (G minor)
● October: Autumn Song (D minor)

Filmed in Julia’s house in New York City, this course offers more than 27 lessons in which students are taught how to play these four beautiful, atmospheric piano miniatures, and invited to ‘play along’ with Julia using the MusicGurus interactive sheet music player.

The original sheet music for the course was provided by Muzyka/Jurgenson, the leading music publisher in Russia, whose products are also distributed via Hal Leonard and C.F. Peters.

‘The Seasons’ has a very special place in piano repertoire and in addition to pure
technique, Julia helps you put the music into its historical context and to gain a deeper understanding to inform and inspire your own performance of these pieces.

This brilliant course will help you achieve your “most successful and gratifying
performances” (Julia Zilberquit).

The course Perform Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons” with Julia Zilberquit is
available to purchase online at http://www.musicgurus.com.

Readers of this site can enjoy a 15% discount off the usual retail price of
£35/€38 using the code CROSSEYEDPIANIST-15

CLICK HERE to purchase

Julia Zilberquit is a Russian-born American pianist who has earned critical acclaim as a recitalist, chamber musician and recording artist. She’s been praised by The New York Times as “an outstanding soloist”, and her recordings have been called “a superb performance” by The Washington Post” or “a gorgeous rendition” by Gramophone magazine.

MusicGurus Ltd is an online learning platform that partners with the world’s best musicians to create interactive lessons to enable music lovers to “become the musician they’ve always wanted to be”.

Established in 2015 by Tom Rogers and Christo Esclapez, MusicGurus is fast becoming the industry leader in online music education. The platform offers 1000s of high-quality on-demand lessons across a variety of different instruments, skills, styles and abilities. Popular world-class ‘Gurus’ already teaching on the site include KT Tunstall, Paddy Milner (Tom Jones), Juliet Russell (The Voice UK) and industry brands including Rockschool.

John Ireland Sarnia: An Island Sequence

John Ireland The Island Spell

Tchaikovsky The Seasons Opus 37a

Tom Hicks, piano

At first sight, pairing a twentieth-century British composer with a nineteeth-century Russian romantic seems an unusual combination, but in this debut disc by young British pianist Tom Hicks the music of these two composers sits well together, creating an enjoyable recital disc of music inspired by nature and infused with pastoralism.

The disc opens with ‘Sarnia’, whose first two movements were composed in 1940 while John Ireland was staying on Guernsey, shortly before it was occupied by the Germans. There is a nice connection between music and pianist here as Tom Hicks hails from Guernsey; ‘Sarnia’ is the Roman name for the island. This atmospheric, dramatic and expansive work portrays aspects of the island and Hicks’ sensitive attention to detail and understated bravura brings this music fully to life with colour, spacious expression, pungent sonorities, and a tender poignancy when required.

‘The Island Spell’, inspired by Jersey and the earliest of Ireland’s Channel Islands pieces, is evocative and impressionistic, redolent of Debussy’s perfumed harmonies and filigree traceries (Ireland was described as an “English Impressionist”), its delicate textures rendered with grace and clarity.

Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Seasons’ follow, a suite of 12 miniatures which encapsulate the composer’s distinct style in microcosm. These characterful, contrasting works are the perfect canvas for Hick to paint a full palette of colours and expression, capturing their intimacy and wistfulness, with a keen ear for details and textures.

Overall, an enjoyable and engaging debut recording from this impressive young pianist.

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