The Well-Tempered Ear

Today is World Piano Day — so play, listen, watch, celebrate

March 28, 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger

World Piano Day — established in 2015 — falls on the 88th day of the year because the standard piano keyboard has 88 keys.

Because 2024 is a Leap Year, World Piano Day is being celebrated a day later than usual — on today, March 28.

For more background and past playlists, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Day

There are lots of free celebrations online, to say nothing of just sitting down at a piano and playing or listening to someone else play or going to your library of CDs and LPs or using your streaming service.

Here is a list of live international events from March 12-April 7,  complete with information links, to concerts and other events marking Piano Day around the world.

Some presenters have put together their own special celebrations. DG is offering a 30-day free trial to its Stage+ streaming site to mark the occasion.

Deutsche Grammophon, the world’s oldest classical record company, has a terrific stable of prize-winning, critically acclaimed pianists, includes Maurizio Pollini who died last Saturday, as well as Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Vikingur Olaffson, Maria Joao Pires, Seong-Jin Cho, Grigory Sokolov, Alice Sara Ott, Daniil Trifonov, Hélène Grimaud and Bruce Liu.

Check it out. Here is a  link to DG’s celebration:

https://www.worldpianoday.com

You can also find many things to watch and hear — concerts, documentaries — for this year and from past year of YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=World+Piano+Day

And at the bottom, from World Piano Day 2023, is a YouTube video with 88 minutes of piano music from masters old and current — including Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein — to celebrate World Piano Day:

Will you celebrate World Piano Day?

Do you play the piano or did you take piano lessons?

Do you have a favorite pianist?

Do you have a favorite composer and favorite piece for the piano?

The Ear wants to hear.


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Here is a news update on American Kenneth Broberg and the six other finalists in the piano concerto round of the International Tchaikovsky Competition on medici.tv for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

June 24, 2019
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Here is a news update on the final round of the piano contest at the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow:

The Ear still hasn’t seen word about the specific repertoire, besides the required Tchaikovsky concerto, that seven finalists in the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition will perform this week.

However, they will take place on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at approximately 10 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. with an extra session on Thursday at 2 p.m., CDT.

American pianist Kenneth Broberg (below, in a photo by Jeremy Enlow), who played in Madison last season at the Salon Piano Series held at Farley’s House of Pianos, will perform second-to-last on Thursday, June 27, at 11:45 a.m.

The Ear is guessing that he will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” which is what he played at the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition where he captured the silver medal.

Stay tuned!

Here is the complete schedule for the final concerto round, which will be live-streamed on TCH16.medici.tv .

Tuesday is Russian Konstantin Emelyanov at 10 a.m. and Russian Dmitry Shishkin at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday is Chinese An Tianxu at 10 a.m. and Russian Alexey Melnikov at 11:45. Thursday is French Alexandre Kantorow at 10 a.m. and American Kenneth Broberg at 11:45 a.m.; and Japanese Mao Fujita at 2 p.m.

Here is a link, or go to PIANO on the home website and click on WATCH: https://tch16.medici.tv/en/piano/

You may experience some delays or temporary disruptions in the live-streaming. Medici.TV says that so far the competition has had more than 10 million views from more than 180 countries, and the online service is struggling to fix outage problems. 


Classical music: American pianist Kenneth Broberg survives into the final concerto round of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Performances start being live-streamed on Tuesday morning

June 23, 2019
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By Jacob Stockinger

It started with 25.

Then there were 14.

And now there are seven.

And American pianist Kenneth Broberg (below), 26, is among the seven pianists who have survived into the concerto finals of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. (Competitions, some in Saint Petersburg, are also taking place in violin, cello, voice, woodwinds and brass. You can see the official preview in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Broberg, the silver medalist at the 2017 Van Cliburn Competition performed a recital in Madison last season as part of the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos.

The other American, 32-year-old Sara Daneshpour (below), was eliminated during the semi-finals that finished yesterday.

Each finalist must perform a Tchaikovsky piano concerto, either the famous No. 1 or the much less familiar Piano Concerto No. 2, plus another concerto of their choice. Usually there is also a lot of Rachmaninoff and often Prokofiev.

So far, The Ear hasn’t seen what concertos Broberg will play or on what day he will perform. When he finds out, he will let you know. If you find out, please leave the information in the comment space.

The concerto concerts will be live-streamed for FREE on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 10 a.m. because of the eight-hour time difference with Moscow. (Below the logo is the historic Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, where the concerto performances, like the solo recitals, are held.)

To follow the concertos, go to: https://tch16.medici.tv/en/

If you hover the cursor over PIANO and then CONTESTANTS you can also find out a lot, and also hear the preliminary and semi-final recitals that Broberg performed. Here is a link to his biography and  background plus his two performances in Moscow:

https://tch16.medici.tv/en/competitors/kenneth-broberg-/

There are suggestions that there was some disagreement among the international panel of judges. The original 25 contestants were supposed to be reduced to 12, but ended up being 14. Then there were supposed to be six finalists, but they named seven.

The other finalists are: Konstantin Emelyanov, 25, of Russia; Mao Fujita, 20, of Japan; Alexandre Kantorow, 22, of France; Alexey Melnikov, 29, of Russia; Dmitry Shishkin, 27, of Russia; and An Tianxu, 20, of China.

All were impressive during the first two solo rounds and received enthusiastic applause, but Mao Fujita received the only standing ovations over 39 solo recitals. The archived performances of all of them are also worth checking out.


Posted in Classical music
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