MARIA MARCHANT
Piano

Sunday 22nd April 2012 at 7.30

Abbots Bromley School, Thompson Hall, Staffs WS15 3BW
Tickets: 01283 840232

Programme to be announunced

…the prodigiouosly gifted Maria Marchant... ..another promising pianist of clean fingers and ambition.. ...Maria Marchant's unfussy, emotionally charged and superbly virtuosic playing caught Leighton's brand of fierce romantic mysticism...  ...the whole series ended with Kenneth Hesketh's Poetic Conceits which Marchant played with consummate mastery.’
The Classical Source, The Times and Musical Pointers

Maria Marchant attended Junior Trinity after learning piano with her grandmother, Kathy Barrett, and entered Trinity College of Music in 2003 where she won numerous awards and prizes including the Eric Falk Trust (Concerto Playing), John Halford (Contemporary Music), John Ireland, Alfred Kitchin (Chopin) and the John Longmire (Beethoven).   Having graduated with First Class Honours and gaining the Silver Medal for Piano Performance, Maria was one of four musicians to be awarded the BBC Performing Arts Fund Education Bursary which funded her MMus in Advanced Piano Performance at the Royal College of Music.   She was also selected by the RCM as one of the 2009 'Rising Stars' and was awarded First Prize and Gold Medal in the International Hindemith Competition 2008 in Berlin and the RCM Hilda Anderson Deane Scholarship.  Maria has studied with many professors including Philip Colman, Philip Fowke, Niel Immelman and Yonty Solomon and has been selected as a young artist on three schemes: the Concordia Foundation, Park Lane Group and the Tillett Trust.  Maria gave her Wigmore Hall debut on 27th September 2010 performing a programme of English Fantasies and returned last June to perform a programme of Liszt, Poulenc and Prokofiev.

As a concerto soloist, Maria has wide experience, most recently performing Finzi's Eclogue, Grieg's Piano Concerto, Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto and the Paganini Rhapsody and Ravel's Left Hand Piano Concerto.  She has performed in many venues such as the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall (RCM), Arundel Castle, Blackheath Concert Halls, Blüthner Piano Centre, Britten Theatre (RCM), Cadogan Hall, Cheltenham Town Hall, Duke's Hall (RAM), Fairfield Halls (Croydon), Konzerthaus (Berlin), National Gallery, Purcell Room (Southbank Centre), Royal Opera House, Steinway Hall, St. David's Hall (Cardiff), St. James's Piccadilly, St. John's Smith Square, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Wigmore Hall.  Maria has performed in many masterclasses taken by renowned pianists such as William Aide, Leif Ove Andsnes, Rolf Hind, Noriko Ogawa, Kathryn Stott and Melvyn Tan.

A frequent recitalist, Maria has participated in a vast array of music festivals including the Cambridge Summer Music Festival, Cheltenham Music Festival, the 2008 and 2009 Proms Plus Series, RCM's Elliott Carter, Messiaen and 'Songs Without Words' Festivals and TCM's New Quays, Schumann and Rzewski Festivals.  A member of the BBC Symphony Chorus, she performed as pianist in William Matthias' Shakespeare Songs with the BBC Symphony Chorus at the Teatro Leal in San Cristobel de Laguna in December 2009 and has recently performed as pianist in the recording of works by Jonathan Dove, Gordon Grosse and John Joubert with the BBC Symphony Chorus for broadcast on Radio 3 on Sunday 18th September 2011 at 5pm on 'The Choir'.

British repertoire is of particular interest to Maria and she gave her Southbank debut in January 2010, performing works by Kenneth Leighton and Kenneth Hesketh in the Purcell Room as part of the Park Lane Group Young Artist New Year Series.  Recent engagements include performances in the Honiton, Ripley and Stratford-upon-Avon Festivals.  Forthcoming performances include a performance of Ravel's G major Concerto with the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Adrian Brown on 16th December 2011 at St. James's Piccadilly and recitals for the Darlington Piano Society and Harris Music Club.

"She has a warm, kind and highly motivated personality and this sincerity and freshness of approach is mirrored in her exuberant, charismatic and fleet-fingered perfomances."  Yonty Solomon                                                                                            

“A real performance with power, passion and dignity.”  Charles Owen

“A major talent on the keyboard.”  Peter Donohoe

"A lively and individual musician."  Niel Immelman

“Maria is a superb pianist and performer with immense technique and musical character in her playing."  Paul Archibald

"A piano recital of pure joy....wonderfully expressive....today's recitalist was conqueror."  Sheila Wood - Lynn News

MARIANGELA VACATELLO
Piano
Sunday 17th June 2012 at 7.30

Abbots Bromley School, Thompson Hall, Staffs, WS15 3BW
Tickets: 01283 840232

"Witty, intelligent, sparkling with a personal interpretation that is seductive and charming…."
LE LIBRE BELGIQUE

The power of Vacatello is staggering, her musicality is on a high level and many critics publicly declare a new Martha Argerich has arrived"
JURRIAN MEYER, Utrecht.

"The prodigious playing of an outstanding youthful master"
ANNA BENDER Johannesburg.

Born in Naples in 1982 to a musical family Mariangela began performing at the age of five and made her official debut in Milan at the age of fourteen, performing Liszt's first piano concerto with the Pomeriggi Musicali. She graduated at the Milan Conservatory1999 went on to achieve her Masters Degree is 2006 and on both occasions awarded top marks "Cum Laude". She has appeared as soloist in the most prestigious Italian venues and festivals including the Michelangeli Festival and festivals in Brescia, Maggio Musicale, Florence and Sala Verdi in Milan. She has worked with renowned international artists and appeared with major international orchestras including Lithuanian Symphony Orchestra, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Orchestra di Padova del Veneto and Zagreb Philarmonia, under the World's leading conductors.

She is in continuous demand internationally, performing at the Montpellier Festival, also Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Zagreb, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Santander and Mexico.  She made her New York debut at Bargmusic Hall and subsequently at the Carnegie Hall.  She regularly broadcasts on Radio France, Radio della Svizzera Italiana, and Radio Italia.  Mariangela is an impressive international prize winner.  The list includes Franz Liszt International Piano Competition, Concerti di Villa in Vicenza, Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy and in 2007 she was awarded the Laureate Prize at the Queen Elizabeth Competition. 

MARIANGELA  VACATELLO has chosen to perform a delightfully varied programme:- 

HAYDN Fantasy in C
BEETHOVEN Sonata Op. 109
CHOPIN Scherzo No. 4
CHOPIN Rondo Op 16
CHOPIN Etudes from Op 10 and 25
BUSONI 10 Variations on a prelude by Chopin