Preludes & Variations

Busoni, Ferruccio, Copland, Aaron, Debussy, Claude, Kohs, Ellis, różni kompozytorzy

Myer, Spencer

HMU 907477

Nakład wyprzedany, ostatni egzemplarz

Alexander Melnikov, born in Moscow in 1973, has already earned a considerable reputation in international music life. At the age of six he received his first music lessons and later studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he graduated in 1997 in the class of Lev Naumov. Sviatoslav Richter declared the young artist a "first-rate talent" and regularly invited him to the Moscow December nights. In Munich he continued his education with Elisso Wirssaladze. Melnikov has performed with famous conductors and many orchestras in Europe, Asia and America: with Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, with Valery Gergiev and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Rotterdam and Saint Petersburg... Chamber music plays an important role for him: An artistic partnership connects him with the violinist Isabelle Faust, he also plays with Vadim Repin, Natalia Gutman, Alexander Rudin, Victor Tretiakov, the Borodin Quartet, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Truls Mørk, or with other pianists such as Andreas Staier, Boris Berezovsky and Alexei Lubimow. Occasionally he also plays fortepiano and works regularly with Concerto Köln. Alexander Melnikov has been contributing his broad artistic horizon as a lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester since 2002.

Javier Perianes is one of the pianists of hope in Spanish cultural life. A student of Julia Hierro and Josep Colom, among others, he deepened his training with Richard Goode and Alicia de Larrocha as well as with Daniel Barenboim, under whose direction he recently performed Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto. Initially a guest at numerous festivals in his Spanish homeland (Santander, Granada, San Sebastian), he has recently appeared in La Roque d'Anthéron, at the Folle Journée de Nantes and at the festivals in Ravinia and Gilmore (USA). In the meantime, the career of Javier Periane has gained international stature: Concert tours have taken him to Russia, China, Poland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and South America; the list of conductors with whom the artist has performed is similarly varied: Jesús López Cobos, Paul McCreesh, Kirill Petrenko, Adrian Leaper and Aldo Ceccato are just a few of the names. Most recently he performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic under Antoni Wit and made his debut at the Berlin Konzerthaus

Private promotion of promising talents plays a prominent role in America. The American Pianists Association, founded in 1979 by Tony Habig and Victor Borge among others, also gave Spencer Myers his chance in the form of a $75,000 scholarship, which was awarded to him in April 2006. After graduating from Juillard School, Myers studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and received a Doctor of Musicals Arts degree from Stony Brook University in New York. Spencer Myer has toured all of North America, Europe, Africa and Asia with solo concerts, chamber music and as soloist with orchestra - for example, his first prize at the tenth UNISA Piano Competition in Pretoria led to a tour of South Africa with Beethoven's five piano concertos. Myer receives excellent reviews for his international concert performances and establishes himself more and more as one of the exceptional young pianists of his generation.

Works:

• Busoni: 10 Variations on a Prelude of Chopin
• Copland: Piano Variations
• Debussy: Préludes - Book 2
• Kohs: Variations Sur L'Homme armé

CD x 1

Harmonia Mundi

26.11.07

093046747725