Piano Recital with Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung

The Pharos Arts Foundation with the kind support of FBME BANK presents pianists Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung, who as part of their summer European tour will visit Cyprus for a unique concert on 29 June.

Partners in life and art, Bax and Chung, will perform an exciting programme comprising the original version for piano four hands of Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, Brahms’ 16 Waltzes Op. 39, and their own arrangements of Piazzolla’s tangos.

Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung happened to meet at the 1997 Hamamatsu Piano Competition, and began a deep friendship which eventually led to their marriage in 2004. In 2003 the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival had the brilliant idea to put them together in a piano duo. Since then, the two piano and piano-four-hand format has become an important addition to their extensive solo careers. A couple of very successful recordings (Ligeti’s complete works and Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals), together with memorable performances around the world of works like the Rachmaninov Suites and Stravinsky’s own astonishing  four-hand version of his complete ballet Petrouchka, have helped to establish them all over the globe (USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, South Korea etc..) as the most dynamic and brilliant young piano duo of their generation.  

Alessio Bax / piano

Pianist Alessio Bax is praised for creating “a ravishing listening experience” with his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations and dazzling facility. “His playing quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity,” says Gramophone magazine, leading to “an out-of-body experience” (Dallas Morning News). Since taking first prizes at the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition and the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan, Bax has won audiences across the globe. In 2009 he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, one of the most prestigious prizes in classical music. Alessio Bax has appeared as soloist with over 80 orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Dallas, Houston and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras, Rome Symphony and Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra. He has collaborated with a number of esteemed conductors such as Marin Alsop, Alexander Dimitriev, Jonathan Nott, Vasily Petrenko and Sir Simon Rattle. His extended discography includes a number of award winning CDs such as Baroque Reflections which was selected as a Gramophone "Editor's Choice” and American Record Guide “Critics’ Choice”.

Lucille Chung / piano

Born in Montréal, Canadian pianist Lucille Chung has been acclaimed for her “stylish and refined performances” by Gramophone magazine, "combining vigor and suppleness with natural eloquence and elegance" (Le Soir). Chung made her debut at the age of ten with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Charles Dutoit subsequently invited her to be a featured soloist during the MSO Asian Tour in 1989. Since then, she has performed an extensive concerto repertoire with over 50 leading orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Flemish Radio Orchestra and Staatskapelle Weimar. She has appeared with conductors such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Vladimir Spivakov, Gerd Albrecht, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Peter Oundjian and Charles Dutoit. Chung was recognized on the international scene as the First Prize winner at the Stravinsky International Piano Competition. She also won prizes at the Montreal International Music Competition and the International Franz Liszt Competition in Weimar. Lucille Chung has been hailed as “a considerable artist, admirable for her bold choice of music” by the Sunday Times for her recordings of the complete piano works by György Ligeti, and her all-Scriabin CD won the “Best Instrumental Recording” prize at the 2003 Prelude Classical Awards in Holland.

Programme:
Igor Stravinsky Petrouchka (original version for piano four hands)
Johannes Brahms 16 Waltzes op. 39
Astor Piazzolla Tangos (arr. by Bax/Chung)

Tickets from:
Tel: 7000 9304 / www.pharostickets.org