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Free piano servicing for Kemble customers
7 March 2012
Kemble Pianos have unveiled a free servicing programme for customers who purchase a new instrument throughout 2012.
The Free Piano Servicing programme offers 12 months of complimentary servicing with every new Kemble piano purchased this year. This includes two comprehensive tunings, two technical inspections, and regulation and voicing checks.
Every Kemble piano is individually voiced and adjusted in the company’s UK workshops to ensure the characteristic warmth and familiar response for which Kemble pianos are well known. In 2011 the piano makers celebrated its centenary, a milestone that International Piano marked with a series of specially commissioned illustrations (July/Aug edition, issue 8).
For further information on the Kemble servicing programme, click here.
Irreparable pianos inspire exciting new art exhibition
28 February 2012
Piano As Art, an exhibition created by artists Penny Putnam and Shauna Holiman in collaboration with Faust Harrison Pianos, has opened at the piano makers’ showroom in White Plains, New York.
The art is inspired by, and in most cases made up of, disassembled parts of irreparable pianos – antique ivories, hammers, oddly shaped inner mechanicals and bits of casework – contributed by Faust Harrison. The exhibition includes a tabletop sculpture that transforms wippens into race horses (pictured), and an elegant wall piece made of 1,640 pieces of recycled antique ivory.
On 22 March the exhibition will travel to the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut, and in May it moves on to the Faust Harrison Pianos Manhattan showroom on West 58th Street.
New record label for lesser-known piano music
30 January 2012
Grand Piano, a new label dedicated to classical piano recordings, will launch this March. The group will focus on rare works and lesser-known piano cycles that might otherwise have remained unrecorded.
Early releases will include the first in a series of five discs covering the complete piano works of Saint-Saëns performed by New York-based Geoffrey Burleson, and a volume of pieces by Joachim Raff, not previously recorded, by Vietnamese pianist Tra Nguyen. Piano fans can also look forward to a series of Moisey Samuilovich Vaynberg works, set to disc by Allison Brewster Franzetti, and a CD featuring Caroline Weichert performing repertoire by Erwin Schulhoff.
Long-term plans include the release of world premiere recordings of the complete piano sonatas by Christian Gottlob Neefe – famous as Beethoven’s teacher – played by Susan Kagan; Beethoven’s complete four-handed works for one piano by duo Amy and Sara Hamann; Gerhard Frommel’s piano sonatas with soloist Tatjana Blome; 100 Etudes by Johann Baptist Cramer performed by Gianluca Luisi, and the complete piano music of Alexander Tcherepnin, recorded by Giorgio Koukl.
During 2012 Grand Piano releases will feature artwork by Gro Thorsen, a London-based graduate of Wimbledon School of Fine Art, on its CD covers (pictured). The label will be distributed worldwide by the Naxos Group.
Lang Lang to perform Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle in London
10 January 2012
© Marco Borggreve
Superstar pianist Lang Lang returns to the UK in March to
perform his complete Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle. It will be the first time
the 27-year-old has performed the repertoire in London, and the series will
take place over three evenings at the Royal Albert Hall.
Lang Lang will be
joined by conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra. The
series opens on 20 March with the Namensfeier overture, Op 115 and concertos
Nos 1 and 4. It continues the following night with the Leonore overture, No 2,
Op 72a and concertos Nos 2 & 3, and concludes on 23 March with the King
Stephen overture, fifth concerto and fourth symphony.
Tickets cost £10-67.50 (plus booking fee) and are available
via the box office on 0845 401 5005 or online here
Superstar line up for Southbank Centre’s 2011-12 International Piano Series
27 November 2011
Legendary pianists Mitsuko Uchida, Arcadi Volodos and Maurizio Pollini (pictured) will perform at London’s Southbank Centre as part of the venue’s 2011-12 International Piano series.
The series has already featured several stellar performances by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who played music by Pierre Boulez in October and Franz Liszt earlier this month. Aimard’s second Liszt recital takes place on 7 December, and was discussed in the Nov/Dec edition of International Piano magazine (IP). The Liszt Forum that took place on 15 October will be reviewed in the Jan/Feb edition of IP.
Following the success of Alice Sara Ott’s recital in November, Alexei Volodin will perform on 13 June and Yuja Wang returns on 1 May. Continuing the legacy of this spring’s Lang Lang Inspires project that saw 100 young UK pianists playing alongside Lang Lang on the Royal Festival Hall stage, Southbank Centre has invited a number of young pianists to curate their own concerts at the Purcell Room (18 February 2012) – propagating the pianist’s personal mission to broaden the reach of classical music around the world and inspire the next generation of musicians.
The Royal Festival Hall will host some of the biggest names in the piano world in 2012: Maurizio Pollini (6 March); Mitsuko Uchida (23 April), playing the last three Schubert sonatas; and a rare London recital by the Russian super-virtuoso Arcadi Volodos (22 May). Richard Goode returns to Southbank Centre following his sabbatical with his Royal Festival Hall recital debut (12 February) playing Chopin and Schumann. The Series also welcomes the return of Leif Ove Andsnes (29 March), Lars Vogt (15 May), Peter Donohoe (28 February), Jonathan Biss (17 January), François-Frédéric Guy (20 March) and Peter Jablonski (31 January).
