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Andrei Gavrilov: “Playing the piano means sharing love”
Andrei Gavrilov was a teenage superstar of the Soviet Union! In 1974, aged 18, he won the prestigious Tchaikovsky piano competition, and in the same year made his triumphant international debut at the Salzburg Festival. A protégé of the extraordinary
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Forgotten Pianists: Jean Doyen
As with many pianists from France, Jean Doyen (1907-1982) attended the Paris Conservatoire, ending up as a student of Marguerite Long. He made his solo debut in 1924, but returned to the Conservatoire in 1926 for lessons in counterpoint and
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Fits the bill: Constellation collocation in classical music
As a young Chinese man, I have encountered many ancient superstitious beliefs, such as fortune-telling, Feng Shui and palmistry. The Chinese Zodiac assigns an animal to each birth year in a repeating twelve-year cycle, while in Western astrology, it’s based
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Forgotten Pianists: Jeanne-Marie Darré
French pianist Jeanne-Marie Darré (1905-1999) took the works of Chopin and Liszt as her hallmark, being known for her lyrical and elegant style. After first taking lessons from her mother, she studied at the Paris Conservatoire, first as a preparatory
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Darwin Leonard Prakash: The Young Indian Opera Prodigy
The Summer of 2014 proved to be a wholly exciting and life changing time for Darwin Leonard Prakash, a young Indian boy living in New Delhi who has a fascination with the human voice and the Western idiom of singing
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Forgotten Pianists: Robert Casadesus
The Casadesus family produced a number of outstanding musicians: Henri (1879-1947), a violist and music publisher; Marius (1892-1981), a violinist and composer; Gaby (née Gabrielle L’Hôte, 1901-1999), pianist and teacher; and Jean (1927-1972), a pianist. The one we’re going to
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Wigmore Hall: London’s Sacred Shoe-Box
Opened on 31 May 1901, Wigmore Hall, nestling unobtrusively just a stone’s throw from the bustle and litter of Oxford Street in a row of tall Edwardian façades, is London’s pre-eminent venue for chamber music, song recitals and solo piano
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Forgotten Pianists: Agnelle Bundervoët
French pianist Agnelle Bundervoët (1922-2015) started to learn the piano age age 4 and by age 7 was enrolled in the Conservatoire National de Marseille and by age 10 was at the leading school in France, the Paris Conservatoire. She
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