Rising Stars: Batsashvili & Park

Georgian pianist Mariam Batsashvili won (as the first woman) the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht in 2014; one critic wrote that she forms each phrase into something unique. The win involves a tour that has taken her to over 30 countries. Freshest on her calendar are collaborations with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brussels Philharmonic, as well as concerts at, for example, Beethovenfest Bonn.

In 2014, German pianist Christopher Park won the Leonard Bernstein Award, and critics lauded his masterful technique and intense stage presence. He has already soloed with Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orquesta Nacional de España, Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.

The first part of the programme will be performed by Batsashvili. If you’ve won the Liszt competition, then naturally you ought to also perform music by Liszt, which happens here in two forms: Liszt’s arrangement of music from Handel’s opera Almira, and original music by Liszt from the 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies. In between will be music by Chopin.

In the second portion of the programme, Park will play Schumann’s Fantasie, Op. 17 – a central work from Schumann’s oeuvre and the romantic piano literature and, incidentally, dedicated to Liszt. Stravinsky’s piano version of music from the ballet Petrushka will conclude the concert: a piano version that does not at all attempt to imitate the orchestra movement, but in which Stravinsky translates the music into an expression for piano in greater depth.

Mariam Batsashvili was nominated for Rising Stars by Bozar, Brussels and Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.

Christopher Park was nominated for Rising Stars by Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Vienna.