Valentina Lisitsa plays the theme of the Rachmaninoff/Warenberg ‘5th’ Piano Concerto’s 2nd movement, recorded in Amsterdam. A very beautiful interpretation, that imho combines and fuses a poetic delicacy with soulful temperament and powerful passion that only Valentina can bring out to the listener. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her playing here as much as I do.
This piano concerto is an arrangement by Alexander Warenberg of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Symphony. The recording presented here is used with permission and part of video-material shot by Alexei Kuznetsoff (Valentina’s husband) in Amsterdam, May 2010, that features Valentina playing piano solo parts of the Rachmaninoff/Warenberg Piano Concerto #5.
Valentina was performing in The Netherlands in May 2010. On 29 May 2010 I did a video-interview with Valentina in Rotterdam on the Rachmaninoff/Warenberg 5th Piano Concerto after she played the concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on 28 May 2010.
Me and Valentina after the interview in Rotterdam
I will present this interview in a video-report later on this year combined with the video-material, shot in Amsterdam, of Valentina playing piano solo parts of the ‘5th’ concerto.
On Saturday 22 May 2010 electrifying world class classical pianist Valentina Lisitsa is performing in Leiden, The Netherlands. She’s gonna play an exciting and daring programme: two Beethoven Sonatas (the ‘Mondschein’ and the very complicated ‘Hammerklavier’) and all(!) 24 etudes of Chopin. For more information on the location and sale of tickets, click here. On Friday 28 May she will perform the Rachmaninoff / Warenberg 5th Piano Concerto (European premiere) with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Both concerts are really a must for evry lover of classical piano playing.
Valentina Lisitsa during a rehearsal in the Abbey Road Studios, London, December 2009 (photo: Pieter de Rooij)
I consider Valentina Lisitsa a once-in-a-generation pianist and one of the best classical pianists ever. To illustrate my words I’ll present below ten videos of Valentina that show the immense range of her musical powers. Most of these videos are from her Youtubechannel, which is actually the world’s best visited channel of a classical pianist. I also would like to refer to my Youtube video-documentary on Valentina’s Rachmaninoff recording project with the London Symphony Orchestra that can be found on my Youtubechannel, along with other videos I made last year in London of Valentina talking and playing. If you live in Holland and you like classical piano then don’t miss this great opportunity to hear the one and only Valentina Lisitsa live on stage in May 2010 in Leiden and Rotterdam.
Click here to listen to my 2002 radio documentary ‘Playing around India’ (original dutch title: ‘Op streek in India’) - mostly in dutch, but also some segments in english - on hindusthani ragaplaying cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas. The great thing is that non-dutch people can completely follow what’s being said throughout the documentary, since below Saskia’s picture in this blog you can click on a picture that contains the complete TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH of the speakers in the programme + time indication + beautiful pictures!
From the Netherlands Saskia moved to Delhi to continue her musical career there and to live there with her husband, famous sitar player Shubhendra Rao who’s also featured in the programme. The documentary was very well received and was broadcasted several times by de Concertzender and by Radio Netherlands. I think the documentary - listen here - is definitely worth a listen for evryone interested in this kind of music.
And by clicking on the picture below - click a few times to enlarge to the right size - you can read a COMPLETE ENGLISH TRANSLATION of the speakers in the programme with time indication and pictures added! The (very good) translation was done by Mike Wilcox.
My latest Youtube-videois concerned with a sensational find I did of a recording of Ravi Shankar, made by Radio Netherlandsin 1957. I did this find already in January 2002. It might be nice for viewers of my Youtube-channelwho are interested in Indian classical music to learn about this interesting historical recording. For more details, see the ‘more info’-section attached to the Youtube-video.
On monday, 24 november 2008, at 12.15 PM in The Hague, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands, Ronald Plasterk, met a delegation of employees of De Concertzender. Managing Director of De Concertzender, Gusta Korteweg, presented him a petition that pleads for the preservation of De Concertzender in its present form, radiodistribution included.
Minister Ronald Plasterk has just received the petition from Gusta Korteweg, managing director of De Concertzender
After receiving the petition from the Concertzender-delegation Minister Ronald Plasterk (more…)
Ik heb op 20 december jl. in Amsterdam het hier eerder aangekondigde debat over multiculturaliteit bijgewoond. De foto toont (zittend) discussiant Ruud Lubbers en (staand) antropoloog Vincent de Rooij, moderator van het debat. Het debat, naar aanleiding van het zojuist verschenen boek ‘Zo zijn onze manieren - visies op multiculturaliteit in Nederland’, werd gevoerd tussen (more…)
To my former message concerned with the book ‘Zo zijn onze manieren’ (’On our own terms’), I’d like to add that in relation to this book there will be an interesting debate in Amsterdam on multiculturality and development aid: Unearthing Possible Linkages: Connecting multi-culturality in the West to Development Assistance to the Global South. (more…)
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