Yuanfan Yang in Skipton

Not quite 2 weeks into Skipton life and time for my first concert courtesy of Skipton Music. I recognised Yuanfan Yang from his Leeds International Piano Competition entry - definitely a 'one to watch' name!

Arriving at Skipton Town Hall, I found that the main hall was pretty full. Definitely more people than a typical Darlington Piano Society concert. The hall has quite a high stage so there aren't really any bad seats.

In his brief speech to the crowd, Yuanfan referenced his previous concert here, 10 years ago!?! Yuanfan spoke with a good degree of confidence and humour.

The concert programme was as follows:

Liszt, La Vallée d'Obermann from Années de Pélerinage

Y. Yang, Ode to the Atlantic

Schumann, Carnaval Op. 9

Schubert, Klavierstücke - No. 1 in E flat from Drei Klavierstücke D. 946

P. Cashian, Landscape (1995)

Prokofiev, Sonata No. 7 in B flat, Op. 83

I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of a self-penned work and a recent composition in the programme. Yuanfan greeted the audience and briefly introduced his own piece, Ode to the Atlantic - a solo piano arrangement for a cello/piano piece he wrote whilst on a cruise with Julian Lloyd Webber. The calm/turbulence of a transatlantic voyage was evident. Harmonically quite 'pop' but nonetheless enjoyable to hear and Yuanfan clearly had a lot of fun writing and performing the piece.

Philip Cashian's piece, Landscape, was a little more difficult to fathom. Its sparse angularity was however in keeping with the subsequent Prokofiev sonata, which to my mind was Yuanfan's strongest performance of the evening. The sonata is one of Prokofiev's more well-known piano works, but nonetheless there remains a challenge to interpret it. Yuanfan had plenty of attitude and a lean sound in the first and third movements; in the second movement he brought out the song - a chorus of defiance in the face of doom.

Ecstatic applause from the audience at the end - and again after an encore of Liszt's La Campanella.

He might be young, but Yuanfan is most definitely one to watch. Engaging and clear - across all the pieces, he exhibited a good sound and shading balance, in control of the piano especially in louder passages (comparison to a few concerts in Darlington where performers occasionally lost a tiny bit of control of the dynamics). Well done!

Angela Hewitt Week, 14th-20th May 2012

I just received information from a friend about Angela Hewitt Week in Ottawa, 14th-20th May as declared by Mayor Jim Watson. Ms Hewitt is performing with Chamber Players of Canada on Friday 18th May; there will also be An Afternoon With Angela Hewitt on 20th May at the National Arts Centre hosted by the Canadian Friends of the Trasimeno Music Festival .

Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .

The Venezuelan maestro comes to Cardiff

A highly anticipated evening of entertainment for M and I, we headed to St Davids Hall to see the conductor of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel , conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra . Highly entertaining, too, and the place was pretty full, though possibly not sold out. We had anticipated the first piece to be Antonio Estevez' 'Mediodia en el llano', but a last minute change meant the first work was (I believe - the posters up in the venue were rather short on info!) Berlioz' Roman Carnival. Initially we may have been a tad disappointed but the replacement work was excellently peformed, cue many smiles. Unfortunately, the smiles soon evaporated, as the second, and for us, least interesting piece, was Mozart's Piano Concert No.17 K453 with Emanuel Ax on piano. M described Ax as mellow, I described him as dull. That may be because neither of us are really into Mozart, but compared to previous visits to St Davids Hall to see pianists Noriko Ogawa and Freddy Kempf, we really...

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