Star pianist Louis Lortie returns to Adelaide
InReview
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will be joined by Chief Conductor, Arvo Volmer and mutli-award winning Canadian pianist Louis Lortie in a concert which features music by two great and revolutionary composers: Beethoven and Shostakovich.
Lortie makes his long-awaited return to Adelaide to perform Beethoven’s timeless Piano Concerto No 4. The work premiered in 1808 in Vienna with Beethoven as soloist in what would be his last appearance as a soloist with an orchestra.
“Everything by Beethoven was groundbreaking, especially in those years,” said Lortie. “It’s such a dramatic, unusual piece. And it also probably was considered very, very difficult instrumentally at the time.”
Lortie has attracted critical acclaim throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States and is celebrated for his interpretations of Beethoven repertoire. Germany’s Die Welt described his Berlin performances as “possibly the finest Beethoven since the time of Wilhelm Kempff.”
He studied with Yvonne Hubert (a student of Alfred Cortot) in his native Montreal, with Beethoven specialist Dieter Weber in Vienna and subsequently with Artur Schnabel disciple Leon Fleisher.
Lortie made his debut with the Montreal Symphony at age 13. In 1984, he won first prize in the Busoni Competition and was also a prizewinner at the 1984 Leeds Competition. Lortie was named officer of the order of Canada in 1992.
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In the second half of this program Volmer conducts Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, 60 years after its first performance in Leningrad in 1953, the year in which Joesph Stalin died. In this liberating symphony, music rejoices in the “decadence and Western disharmony” that the dictator so hated.
Volmer says, “All Shostakovich’s symphonies deal with questions of existence to the highest degree. He always tried to make the world a better place and I think that is something we should all do.”
MASTERS 10
WHEN Friday 6 September, 8pm & Saturday 7 September, 6.30pm
WHERE Festival Theatre
BOOKINGS BASS www.bass.net.au or 131 246
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