Media

Virtuosic Promenade: Khatia Buniatishvili in Recital

19 Feb 2016

 

Presented by Cultural Management Office, HKU

Sunday, 20 March 2016, 3:00PM
Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, the University of Hong Kong

“electrifying… technically flawless… we could see why Martha Argerich had singled her out as a successor” - The Independent

Khatia Buniatishvili’s extraordinary talent has captivated the hearts of listeners all over the world. The 28-year-old Georgian pianist, a shining star at the height of her abilities, brings her "manic maelstrom of musical energy" (The Times, London) to her Hong Kong debut at the Grand Hall, HKU on Sunday 20 March at 3pm.

Acclaimed as "one of today's most technically gifted young pianists" (Gramophone), Khatia will demonstrate keyboard magic of exceptional sensitivity, with Mussorgsky's brilliantly evocative Pictures at an Exhibition and works by Liszt and Stravinsky. “Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Stravinsky's Pétrouchka are the pieces from my latest album Kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope captures the moments of reality (sometimes tragic moments) and transforms them to something beautiful and colorful… And, Liszt is my first love. I always feel being in love and being loved when I play his music,” said Khatia.

Khatia was introduced to the piano at the age of five, gave her first concert with the Tbilisi Chamber Orchestra when she was six, and appeared internationally at age ten. She won numerous international competitions, including the Arthur Rubinstein Competition and the Tbilisi International Piano Competition. In 2008 she made her US debut at Carnegie Hall, since then, she has performed with renowned conductors and orchestras and is regularly invited to festivals. For all music lovers, don’t miss this opportunity to experience Khatia’s heart-melting and imaginative piano playing.

Programme    
MUSSORGSKY                            Pictures at an Exhibition
LISZT                                             La leggerezza, Feux follets, and La campanella
LISZT/ HOROWITZ                      Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
STRAVINSKY                               Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka

Ticketing and recital details, please visit: http://www.muse.hku.hk/en/programmes/2015-16/khatia.

Pictures at an Exhibition at HKU
The Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) composed Pictures at an Exhibition for piano in 1874. A suite of vividly drawn tonal sketches, Mussorgsky frequently repeats and varies a musical statement titled Promenade that imaginatively takes the listener on a walk from 'The Old Castle' (no. 2), 'The Market at Limoges' (no. 7), to 'The Great Gate of Kiev' (no. 10), to name but three stops on this inspirational journey. To accompany the performance of this famous work at HKU by pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, this exhibition of photographs illustrates promenades through Hong Kong and the busy streets of our developing world metropolis in the 1960s.

Details are as follows:
Curated by University Museum and Art Gallery, HKU
Date: March 14 to 31, 2016
Foyer, Chi Wah Learning Commons, Centennial Campus, HKU
FREE ADMISSION

Khatia Buniatishvili
Born in Batumi on 1987, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili was introduced to piano at the age of 5, gave her first concert with Tbilisi Chamber Orchestra when she was 6 and appeared internationally at age 10. She studied in Vienna with Oleg Maisenberg and is a winner of numerous international competitions, including Arthur Rubinstein Competition and Tbilisi International Piano Competition.

Khatia is regularly invited to festivals such as Verbier, Lucern, Ravinia, Aspen, Gstaad, Amsterdam, Bad Kissingen, Saint-Petersburg, BBC Proms, Montpellier, Saratoga, Salzburg, Kronberg, MDR Leipzig, Folles Journées in Nantes and Japan, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, Progetto Martha Argerich, and many more.

In 2008 she made her US debut at Carnegie Hall, performing Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto. Since then, she has performed with the Israel Philharmonic with Kent Nagano and Zubin Mehta, Saint-Petersburg Philharmonic, Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica (Scala de Milan, Rome, Pavia, Istanbul), Sinfonia Varsovia with Maxim Vengerov, NDR Sinfonie-Orchester Hamburg, Lucerne Symphonic, Verbier Festival Orchestra under Neeme Järvi and Charles Dutoit, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Andrey Boreyko, Finnish Radio Symphony, China Philharmonic, Guangzhou Symphony, Shanghai Symphony with Mikhail Pletnev, Philadelphia Orchestra under Larry Foster, San Francisco Symphony under Jaap van Zweden, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestre de Paris under Paavo Järvi, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse under Tugan Sokhiev, BBC Symphony with Kirill Karabits and Jiří Bělohlávek, European Youth Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy, and the Philharmonique de Radio France under Myung-Whun Chung.

Khatia has held recitals in Amsterdam, Athens, Birmingham, Barcelona, Brussels, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, Rome, Florence, Prague, Warsaw, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, Luxembourg, London, Singapore, and Vancouver. In chamber music, she has collaborated with Renaud Capuçon, Truls Mork, Sol Gabetta, in a trio with Gidon Kremer and Giedre Dirvanauskaité, and in a piano duo with her sister, Gvantsa.

She has toured with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (Paavo Järvi), London Symphony Orchestra (Andrés Orozco-Estrada), Vienna Symphony (Philippe Jordan), Kremerata Baltica in Japan and Europe, Orchestre Chamber de Bale (Kristjan Järvi), Russian National Orchestra (Vasily Petrenko), and San Francisco Symphony (Vladimir Jurowski). She has appeared at concerts with Philharmonia Orchestra (Paavo Järvi), Vienna Symphonic (Gianandrea Noseda), Orchestre de Paris (Andrey Boreyko), Orchestre National de France (Daniele Gatti), Orchestre National de Lyon (Eliahu Inbal), Swiss-Italian Radio Orchestra (Pietari Inkinen), Mai Musical Florentine, Scala in Milan (Gianandrea Noseda), Los Angeles Philharmonic (Krzystof Urbanski), Seattle Symphony (Ludovic Morlot), Toronto Symphony (David Zinman), and Munich Philharmonic (Semyon Bychkov).

She is a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist 2009-2011 and as such has regularly collaborated with BBC orchestras. In 2010, she received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and was nominated by Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus as an ECHO Rising Star in 2011/12 season. She also received ECHO Price 2012 in Berlin and was supported by a BSI scholarship.

Programme Enquiries
3917 8165 | www.muse.hku.hk

Press Photos Download
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a9onjuak1lkhyhi/AAAipA0jqjLVMSDYgXZRr8nZa?dl=0 

Media Enquiries
For more information and interview arrangements, please contact:
Ms June Lui | Manager, Cultural Management Office, HKU
Telephone: 3917 7753 | Email: junelch@hku.hk