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Details
Hatchlands Park
East Clandon
East Clandon
Guildford
Surrey
GU4 7RT
England
Programme
Franz Schubert – Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D.821
George Enescu – Konzertstück for Viola and Piano
Johannes Brahms – Sonata for viola and piano in F minor, Op.120 no.1
Performers
Vitaly Pisarenko – piano
Milena Simovic – viola
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
THE INSTRUMENT
Vitaly is performing on the grand piano by Steinway, New York, c. 1864
The piano played by Vitaly Pisarenko in this recital is the very early Steinway concert grand piano. In 1853, Steinway had opened their first factory in New York. By 1859 they patented a model of grand piano that combined a cast iron frame such as had been employed by Chickering of Chicago, with the innovation of ‘overstringing’, in which, for the first time in a grand, the bass strings cross over the tenor region. This makes it possible for the tenor strings to be closer to their optimum lengths while the bass strings have a more favourable position on the soundboard, resulting in a powerfully enhanced sonority. The new overstrung Steinway model won a first rank medal at the London Exhibition of 1862.
THE PERFORMERS
Serbian Milena Simovic is equally at home as a violinist or violist. She studied violin with professor Maja Jokanovic and Krzysztof Smietana, and received her Bachelor and Masters of Music degrees from the Belgrade University of Arts and Music, and Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. After this Milena continued her further studies with viola and has completed another Masters degree at the Zurich University of Arts under Lawrence Power. Milena enjoys an international career of concerto, recital and chamber music performances in Europe, Asia and America. The 2019/2020 season took her to the Trans-Siberian Art Festival for a series of concerts and she appeared as a soloist in the 2019/2020 season in Italy, United Kingdom, Norway, France, Portugal and through the countries of former Yugoslavia, performing alongside some of the most established artists of today’s music scene. Milena is resident viola and a chamber music coach at the annual Culture Festival in Santulussurgiu, Sardinia. In 2017 Milena acted as a principal viola of the City of Birmingham Symphony orchestra, and has been a recording artist of Nigel Kennedy 2015-2017. In May 2018 she premiered Berlioz’s ‘Harold’ in Belgrade with Serbian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which was broadcast live across the country. She premiered Fariouz’s concerto for viola, tenor and chamber choir in Northern Ireland in April 2019, based on the verses of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Anything Can Happen’. It was recorded for Signum Records and is due to be released in 2020. Milena plays a Giovanni Battista Rogeri violin ca.1680 and a Paolo Antonio Testore viola from 1740.
Russian pianist Vitaly Pisarenko had his first public recital at the age of 6. He won First Prize at the 8th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht in 2008 and commenced a packed tour schedule of worldwide engagements the morning after the finals with an appearance at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Damian Iorio. In 2015 he won third Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition. Vitaly started his training at music schools in Kiev, then studied at the Central Music School in Moscow with Professor Yuri Slesarev (1999-2005) and State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (2005-2010, and postgraduate 2010-2013). From 2005-2009 he studied a postacademic course at Rotterdam’s Codarts Conservatory, as a pupil of Aquiles Delle Vigne, and from 2009-2012 Vitaly was a student of Oxana Yablonskaya at her Piano Institute in Italy. Vitaly has performed in more than 25 countries including appearances throughout Europe and in South America, Asia, Israel, Turkey, Russia, South Africa, Mexico and the United States. He has performed recitals in Wigmore Hall, St. James Piccadilly, Queen Elisabeth Hall, Cadogan Hall with the London Mozart Players, St Martin in the Fields, Parliament Chambers and for the Chopin Society, and appeared in the BMS York, Champs Hill, Erin Arts Centre (Isle of Man), Manchester (with the soloists of Manchester Camerata) and Hatchlands. From 2012 Vitaly has been generously supported by the Keyboard Charitable Trust.
THE COLLECTION
The Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands possesses the world’s largest group of keyboards owned by or associated with the masters of music in the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods, including instruments that belonged to or were played by Purcell, JC Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Bizet, Chopin, Liszt, Mahler and Elgar.
