Latest News
Aung San Suu Kyi becomes honorary ambassador for The Leeds International Piano Competition
1 September 2012
© AP Photos San Tan
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has become honorary ambassador for the Leeds International Piano Competition, and the competition’s top prize will be named after her, to become the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Gold Medal.
The Burmese politician is an amateur pianist and during the 15 years she spent under house arrest in Burma she would often play – on one occasion so fiercely that she broke some of the piano’s strings. British prime minister David Cameron (pictured with Aung San Suu Kyi during her recent visit to London) commented: ‘The Leeds International Piano Competition is one of the great classical music competitions in the world. It’s a tremendous advert for Leeds and for Britain as a whole.’ Dame Fanny Waterman, chairman and artistic director of the competition said: ‘This is the greatest honour our piano competition has ever received.’
Former prize winners of the Leeds International Piano Competition have included Murray Perahia, András Schiff and Mitsuko Uchida, and have spanned 28 different countries. The 17th edition of the competition is currently underway and concludes on 16 September. More than 270 pianists entered, from which 80 have been selected to compete in front of an international jury.
ABRSM publishes new piano syllabus
9 July 2012
Examination board ABRSM has published new Piano and Brass syllabuses which take effect from 1 January 2013.
The Piano syllabus comprises 158 newly selected pieces from a range of classical and contemporary composers. The syllabus will be supported by new Piano Exam Pieces sheet music and recordings. Further support for piano teachers will be available through a series of seminars to introduce the new repertoire later on this year.
The Piano
syllabus offers a colourful range of works from a diverse array of countries
including Chinese pieces at Grades 2 and 6, a piece by Venezuelan composer,
Federico Ruiz at Grade 4 (his first appearance on an ABRSM syllabus), and a
rare Chopin arrangement of a Polish song at Grade 3.
All the syllabus material is available to purchase from the Rhinegold Shop. Click here for more information. Music teachers save 10% - enter RGEDUCATE at the checkout.
Welcome, Odradek Records!
1 July 2012
A new classical music label with a specific focus on
artist-controlled material and piano repertoire is now in operation.
Based in the US but with a global outreach, Odradek Records
is the brainchild of the company’s director John Anderson. Anderson was
inspired to create a record label that could offer recording facilities for
musicians who want to remain free from the constraints and demands of larger
commercial companies. ‘We are convinced that there are many artists who can give an original and high
quality contribution to musical research, and who are unsatisfied with the
current musical world,’ says Anderson.
‘We think that these musicians are only lacking a voice, a channel that permits them to express their talents in a way which is clean and financially accessible, independent from economic and political considerations, or from the criteria of a star system. We believe that classical music, produced in this way, has not only an already existing affectionate public, but a potentially much larger new public, waiting only to be reached.
‘In short, Odradek Records wants to be a voice for artists
who share our philosophy and a channel between them and the public.’
As well as providing a platform to record material, Odradek Records offers all its net profits to the artists. ‘We don’t accumulate capital, only recuperate its expenses. This buys us freedom from the markets and the logic of the star system and culture industry,’ explains Anderson. ‘Artists join our label through an honest and open application process, without consideration of their backgrounds, financial status, political connections, or past successes.’
The label has chosen to specialise in piano works and has attracted pianists from across the globe, such as Duo Miho and Masumi Hio, and Domenico Codispoti. In addition to its recent releases – including the complete piano works of Schoenberg by Pina Napolitano – Odradek Records has received the first recording rights from Boosey & Hawkes for Unsuk Chin’s Piano Études. The label is currently programming its first series of music festivals around Italy this July.
Odradek records are available to buy through Amazon, with digital versions available via the company website and iTunes.
Purchase the July/August edition of International Piano magazine for a FREE 22-track download of piano music, including works by Ravel, Ligeti and Schoenberg, as well as eight exclusive tracks from Javier Negrin's future release and a world premiere recording of Unsuk Chin's Six Etudes.
Elijah Wood to star in thriller 'Grand Piano'
14 May 2012
Pianists make scintillating subject matter for filmmakers – see: The Pianist, The Piano et al – and now Grand Piano, a thriller starring Elijah Wood as the piano-playing protagonist, is slated for creation later this summer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, described as ‘Speed but with a piano’ features
Wood as a once-great concert pianist who has developed crippling stage fright.
After spending five years away from the stage, he returns to perform at a gala,
only to discover a threatening note on his music sheet. Wood must then play to
save both his own life and his wife’s.
Eugenio Mira will direct, working from a script by Damien Chazelle, and Buried team Rodrigo Cortes and Adrian Guerra are involved as producers.
Llyr Williams scoops South Bank Sky Arts Award
2 May 2012
© John Ferro Sims
Welsh pianist Llyr Williams has won a South Bank Sky Arts
Awards for his Beethoven sonata series.
In 2011, Williams performed all 32 of Beethoven’s sonatas across 14 days at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh. He was featured as ‘One to watch’ in the March/April edition of International Piano this year and told the magazine that although he feels closest to Beethoven’s music he finds some of the sonatas ‘difficult to make sense of’. ‘I don’t feel I’ve reached the top of the mountain with them yet,’ he commented, ‘But you never do with that music’.
The award was announced at the 16th South Bank
Sky Arts Awards ceremony on 1 May. The event is the only one of its kind to
represent a broad spectrum of British arts, including visual arts, opera,
television drama, dance, film and literature.
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Roald Dahl’s
Matilda, created by Dennis Kelly and comedian-pianist Tim Minchin, won the
theatre category. Elsewhere, Grayson Perry was handed the Visual Arts award by
Tracey Emin for his hit exhibition, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, at the
British Museum.
