The Keyboard Charitable Trust in collaboration with Steinways present Mikhail Kambarov
Ist Prize Winner Trapani International Piano Competition April 2024 and La Mayenne International Competition May 2024
Wednesday 16th October 18.30 Steinway Hall 44 Marylebone Lane -Bond Street free admission but reservation essential

‘The Messiaen brought tears to my eyes as the stillness and whispered sounds of heart rending significance struck deep and the pungent harmonies ,sometimes like broken glass,were of searing intensity.’ Christopher Axworthy

Trapani the jewel of Sicily where dreams can become reality – The International Piano Competition – Domenico Scarlatti

PROGRAMME:
Scarlatti Sonata in B minor, K. 87
Rachmaninov Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42
Messiaen “Le Baiser” from “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus”
Beethoven Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

The Keyboard Charitable Trust in collaborazione with Steinway Hall
44 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2DB

Mikhail Kambarov at Steinway Hall for the Keyboard Trust from the whispered delicacy of Scarlatti with a kaleidoscope of colours of intimate confessions to Rachmaninov Corelli Variations of nobility and ravishing beauty.

Fantasy musicianship and mastery combined in a performance where Mikhail took us to wondrous lands of sometimes even oriental mystery such was the poetic artistry he shared with us on a piano that I have never heard played so quietly.

Messaien with a kiss to end all kisses that was inspired and monumental as the clashing dissonances were imbued with aching beauty. A technical mastery that could make the piano roar as it could whisper but always in an architectural bubble that contained and never strained to reveal the wondrous beauty of all he played.

A poet of the piano but also of great intelligence who could bring such monumental importance to Beethoven’s last Sonata.The burning cauldron of the first movement was immediately calmed by the serenity and passionate conviction with which he revealed Beethoven’s most intimate thoughts as he reached for that paradise that he could visualise already in the not too distant future.

It was fascinating to learn from Leslie Howard over a glass of wine or two that Rachmaninov had turned hell into redemption too. The penultimate variation of Corelli being a quote from his opera Francesca da Rimini of 1906 with a depiction of the ‘Inferno’ leading after the final variation to the sublime reappearance of ‘La Folia’ transformed into a thing of glowing palpitating beauty.And the similarity does not finish there either because the Corelli variations are the last work that Rachmaninov wrote for piano solo too!

Francesca da Rimini  op 25, is an opera in a prologue, two tableaux and an epilogue by Rachmaninov to a Russian libretto by modest Tchaikowsky . It is based on the story of Francesca da Rimini in the fifth canto of Dante’s epic poem The Inferno   (the first part of the Divine Comedy ). The fifth canto is the part about the Second Circle of Hell(Lust) . Rachmaninoff had composed the love duet for Francesca and Paolo in 1900, but did not resume work on the opera until 1904. The first performance was on 24 January (O.S. 11 January) 1906 at the Bolshoi Theatre , Moscow, with the composer himself conducting, in a double-bill performance with another Rachmaninoff opera written contemporaneously, The Miserly Knight .

The ghost of Virgil leads the poet Dante to the edge of the first circle of the Inferno. They descend into the second, where the wordless chorus of the damned souls is heard. Virgil tells Dante that this is the realms where sinners given over to lust are punished, buffeted by an eternal whirlwind. Dante asks two such souls, Francesca and Paolo, to tell their story. Paolo and Francesca recede into the whirlwind of the second circle. Dante is overcome with pity and terror, and he and Virgil remain with the thought: ‘There is no greater sadness in the world than to remember a time of joy in a time of grief’.

The extraordinary class of Michail Lifits.Nine young pianists of artistic integrity and refined musicianship who illuminated the beauty of Chopin’s 21 nocturnes

Mikhail Kambarov was born in 2000 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia and had his first piano lessons at the age of five. At eight, he made his orchestral debut with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Nizhny Novgorod. At sixteen, he moved to Germany to continue his musical studies at the Hochbegabtenzentrum Schloss Belvedere Weimar with Christian Wilm Müller. Since 2023, he has been studying with Michail Lifits.
He has won prizes at many international competitions including First Prize at the 24th International Alexander Scriabin Piano Competition in Grosseto (Italy). He also won First Prize at the eleventh International Chopin Competition for Young Pianists in Estonia, (and the prize for the best J.S. Bach interpretation); Second Prize at the seventh International Piano Competition in Fribourg, Switzerland; First Prize at the International Piano Competition “Citta di Moncalieri”; Third Prize at the tenth International Piano Competition for Young Pianists “A Step Towards Mastery” in St. Petersburg, in addition to an EMCY Prize; First Prize at the International Piano Competition in Wiesbaden; and First Prize, the Audience Prize and the Special Prize for the best interpretation of a sonata by Domenico Scarlatti at the second International Piano Competition Domenico Scarlatti.
As a soloist, Mikhail has worked with many renowned orchestras including the Philharmonic Orchestra of Nizhny Novgorod, the Orchestra Sinfonica Città di Grosseto, the Youth Symphony Orchestra Algirdas Paulavičius, the Nizhny Novgorod Soloists and the Thuringia Philharmonic Orchestra Gotha/Eisenach. He has performed in prestigious venues in Russia, Austria, Germany and Italy.
In addition to his extensive solo activities, Mikhail is also a passionate and experienced chamber musician and “lieder” pianist. With the Trio Fulminato, he has won numerous prizes, including the First National Prize at the Jugend Musiziert, combined with a sponsorship prize from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. The Trio has also won the WDR Klassikpreis, the MDR Special Prize, as well as the Hermann Abs Special Prize of the Beethovenhaus Bonn for the best interpretation of a work by Ludwig van Beethoven.
In 2018, the Trio Fulminato toured the USA with concerts in Boston, Nelson and Washington DC. The Trio’s concerts have been recorded several times and broadcast on MDR Kultur and WDR 3.

https://www.concourspianomayenne.fr/cat/actualites/le-concours-et-son-organisation/

A video of the celebration concert in which Sir Antonio Pappano plays Bach and Michail Lifits who is Mikhail Kamberov’s teacher at the Liszt Academy in Weimar plays Chopin