On February 24 at 19:00, two outstanding pianists of the younger generation, Aurēlija Šimkus and Tony Yike Yang (Tony Yike Yang), will appear at the Ola Foundation cultural space with a special concert program - works for solo piano and piano four hands.
The concert program is conceived as a musical journey that will begin with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, who drew inspiration from Italian music. The journey will continue with a work by Ferenc Liszt from the Hungarian composer's collection "Years of Pilgrimage - Switzerland", while the first part will conclude with a work by the French Romantic composer Gabriel Fauré, the final movement of whose Dolly suite was written under the inspiration of Spanish music (Le pas espagnol).
The second part of the concert will have a more cheerful atmosphere. The artists will create a musical bridge between 18th-century Austria and 20th-century America. Although the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Leonard Bernstein has its roots in two different parts of the world, continents, and eras, it has much in common - swing, vitality, and wit, which unite these great composers.
Concert in two parts.
Intermission: 30 minutes.
The concert begins at 19:00; guests are invited to arrive from 18:15 for a glass of welcome wine and a visit to three current exhibitions.
AURĒLIJA ŠIMKUS'S international career began at the age of 16, when the German record company Ars Produktion released her solo album Scherzo. The magazine Piano News named it Album of the Month, writing that “Aurēlija Šimkus is an outstanding pianist and a true discovery”, while the newspaper Westfalische Rundschau admired the soulfulness of her playing, filled with refined musicality and sensuality. For her second solo album Bach. Ich ruf’ zu dir, Aurēlija received the prestigious Echo Klassik award in 2016.
Aurēlija Šimkus has participated in the festivals Interlaken Classics, Next Generation Festival, Kissingen Summer, the Kurt Weill Festival, the Bonn Schumann Festival, the Masters of Tomorrow festival, and others. She has performed with the English Chamber Orchestra, the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra, the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra, the Georgian Chamber Orchestra, the Orpheum Chamber Orchestra, the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rhineland-Palatinate Philharmonic Orchestra, and other ensembles.
The foreign press writes about pianist TONY YIKE YANG: “An absolute discovery… He combines the qualities of a true virtuoso and an artist” (The Chopin Courier) and “Yang possesses dazzling technique and gives a personal signature to everything he plays” (The Dallas Morning News). Hailed as one of Canada's outstanding young musicians, pianist Tony Yike Yang gained international recognition at the age of 16 by taking fifth place at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2015. He has also won prizes at the Van Cliburn, Bosendorfer & Yamaha USASU, Hilton Head and other international piano competitions.
As a soloist, Tony Yike Yang has performed at Koerner Hall in Toronto, the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, the Seoul Arts Center, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, the Millennium Amphitheatre in Dubai, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Chopin Hall in Mexico City, and elsewhere.
