Monthly Archives: November 2010

Viv McLean, return of an old friend – 7th December 2010

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POSTPONED! Please note this recital has been postponed until 17th May 2011 (due to weather conditions) – same programme, same venue.

Viv Mclean Some are so famous that their names have become household words in their own countries. Among these is a particular friend who has played many times in Sunderland since his student days and who always enjoys coming back: Viv McLean.

He is returning to build a December programme of music by Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Kalinnikov and Gershwin, many items of which are audience requests.

Viv went to Chetham’s School of Music (Manchester) and then to the Royal Academy in London. He has won major competition prizes and sponsorship awards. He has performed in all the major venues in the U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Malta, Israel, Cyprus, Japan, Australia and the U.S.A. Apart from his solo recital work he has done a great number of Concerto soloist performances with great orchestras and conductors around the world. Viv regards music as an intensely collaborative and communication medium and so loves to combine with other fine musicians in Chamber Music.

Sunderland is proud to present this great artist.

The pianist Viv McLean seemed exceptional to me; he astonished us with his musical maturity and extraordinary sonority.
Le Monde (Paris)

At the Festival de Melle, Viv McLean revealed extraordinary originality, superb simplicity, and fingers of steel hidden behind muscles of velvet. He is an otherworldly young man – he plays with the genius one finds in those who know how to forget themselves, naturally placing themselves at the right point to meet the music, this mystery of the moment.
Le Monde (Paris)

The pianist Viv McLean never faltered, spewing molten lava.
The Times (London)

The fluent technique and brilliance of the interpreter were impressive, he played with insight and the greatest sensitivity.
General Anzeiger (Bonn)

The listener was struck by the sustained level of technical mastery. Viv McLean performed with his mind as well as his hands.
Malta Sunday Times

Sunderland visit of the Moreno-Gistain piano duo

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The Sunderland Pianoforte Society was given the opportunity to be one of the venues for a Spanish-sponsored world concert tour of the prize-winning Moreno-Gistain Piano Duo. Juan and José Moreno-Gistain make up this ‘four-hands-one-piano’ duo and they are brothers (in their twenties) who have each individually won important competition prizes, and on this tour working around the globe as musical ambassadors of their country. They had just completed their week-long tour of the U.S.A. section of their world tour and Sunderland was to be their first port of call in the U.K.

The Society decided to make this a real international community event by getting in touch with “International Community of Sunderland” (ICOS) and inviting as many as wished to come as guests of the Society. The offer was taken up enthusiastically by the Polish section of ICOS.

A good-sized audience in the Winter Gardens enjoyed a most successful evening of superb music, wonderfully played on the Society’s world famous Steinway Concert Grand, consisting of works from European countries all inspired by Spanish culture, melodies and rhythms. Another fascinating and quite unusual aspect of the programme (Title:”Spanish Inspirations”) was the fact that all the works were written for orchestra and transcribed for Piano Duo. Composers represented were Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov from Russia, Walton from England, Ravel from France and De Falla from Spain – all played by two brilliant young musicians from his own country.

Juan and José responded to the enthusiastic audience applause with no less than three encores: Piazolla from Argentina, Schumann from Germany and Ravel from France.

There were fifteen members of the Polish community in Sunderland attended the concert as guests who insisted on having photograph mementoes of the event afterwards. So lots of happy pictures were taken with the Spanish pianists, the officers of the Sunderland Pianoforte Society and the Poles themselves, and, of course, the famous piano. A wonderful evening was enjoyed hearing fine music and making friends. What better way can time be spent?!

- Laurie Giles, Chairman, Sunderland Pianoforte Society

Néstor Bayona Pifarré recital goes down a treat

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Image of NéstorNéstor Bayona Pifarré performed an exciting programme on Tuesday night.

It turned out to be a brief history of keyboard music from J.S. Bach all the way through to the 21st Century.

His Shostakovich and Bach preludes and fugues were the epitome of contrapuntal clarity, with all inner parts beautifully articulated.

The Hydn variations in F minor, were given their proper status as an impressive piano piece in his interpretation.

His tribute to Chopin on the 200th Anniversary of his birth, was a really fine performance of the Scherzo no3. in C# Minor Op. 39.  This was a monumental performance, and he has the technique to really revel in this extremely difficult piece.

His version of the romantic Beethoven Sonata no. 27 Op. 90 was again impressive and very welcome since this sonata is neglected by concert pianists and has not been played at the society for some thirty years.  The Sunderland audience really enjoyed it.

The more modern pieces filled the 2nd half of his recital.  The Mompou “Song and dance” No. 6 was a delight, in which the audience enjoyed the vivid Spanish rhythms.

The Albeniz Evocacion and the Granados El Fandango del Candil were both old, familiar favourites and interpreted in a vivacious and deeply romantic style.

Cristobal Halffter’s most recent piece was frankly a shock to the system, modern, dissonant and virtuosic.  Some of the audience did not enjoy this repetitive modernism.

Over all, a very good and satisfying survey of  keyboard music from the early 18th to the early 21st century.  Exceedingly well presented, Néstor frequently communicated verbally with his audience, and certainly grabbed their full attention.