If Music be the food of love ..play on -The historic Alberto Portugheis Masterclasses 2023 and updated to 2024

ChristopherAxworthyMusicCommentary

Masterclasses where the composers wishes are paramount as Maestro Portugheis with humility and respect shares his thoughts with young musicians in annual masterclasses that he holds in many different cities throughout the world.

And this year 2024 in London and Argentina : https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/young-pianists-concert-the-alberto-portugheis-masterclasses-tickets-1037572927557

Gabrielé Sutkuté
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/15/25295/
Roxanna Shini Mehrabzadeh
Misha Kaploukhii
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/05/05/misha-kaploukhii-mastery-and-clarity-in-waltons-paradise-where-dreams-become-reality/
Kyle Hutchings
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/09/11/kyle-hutchings-a-poetic-troubadour-of-the-piano-reveals-the-heart-of-mozartschubert-and-franck-the-keyboard-trust-concert-tour-of-adbaston-ischiaflorence-and-milan/
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/13/gabriele-sutkute-takes-mayfair-by-storm-passion-and-power-with-impeccable-style/
With Angel Laguna Herrera
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2016/12/13/a-birds-eye-view-of-a-very-happy-occasion-martha-argerich-and-alberto-portugheis-wigmore-hall-75th-birthday-celebration/
With Yisha Xue and Helen Meng
With Italian ballet critic Simonetta Allder
Gabrielé Sutkuté
Gabrielé with companion the guitarist Gonçalo Maia Caetano
Maestro Portugheis with Maestro Hao Yao
BA in Piano performance, ZJCM, China
MA in Piano performance, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, UK
PhD in Musicology, University of Birmingham, UK
I am the founder of Classical-D Music, a music platform established in 2017 that now has more than 120,000 followers. The platform is dedicated to piano music learners, offering lessons from top-tier teachers, performance opportunities around the world, and preparation for prestigious competitions and musical events. Currently, we are running two core programs:
1. CIPMF Piano Festival
– 2024 edition: [CIPMF Piano Festival 2024](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/B-bJzf-GLrGeCMWvqG0V0Q)
 – 2023 edition: [CIPMF Piano Festival 2023](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BfUQAkM6XxxsARIwEjn5Vw)
 2. Artist Project
Once the artist has joined the project, the responsible party will coordinate various music activities for the artist and design a career development plan.
I am also currently the Chairman of the Liszt Society in China, and every year I send the top pianists to London to participate in the Liszt Society Piano Competition through the selection process of my festival. The winner of last year’s Liszt Society Piano Competition was one of my students, and he will be returning to London for a recital in November this year.
With Christopher Axworthy !

A total respect for the composers wishes is the start of an interpretation to turn dots and dashes into the same sounds that the composer could imagine in his head.Nowhere is that more apparent than with the elderly Beethoven – totally deaf as he wrote down his final Sonatas with indications on performance that were sounds only in his head .He was able to transform his wishes precisely onto the printed page to share with posterity.A miracle indeed and there are one or two performers who can perform miracles as they translate these wishes into sound with mastery and artistry.

A lifetime voyage of discovery that Alberto Portugheis shares with talented young musicians with determination,severity but above all love.

Alberto Portugheis – A Renaissance man goes POSK to celebrate the 213th Birthday of Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin

Masterclasses at the Steinway Hall in London

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/01/11/alberto-portugheis-the-renaissance-man/

Alberto Portugheis is running his annual Masterclasses for advanced piano students and young professionals at Steinway Hall in London this September.



Masterclass Information

·  Venue: Steinway Hall, 44 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2DB

·  Dates: Monday, September 4th – Friday, 8 September 2023 

·  Time: Classes daily 10 am – 4 pm daily (break for lunch from 1pm – 2pm)

· Public Students Concert: Thursday, 7 September at 6.30 pm

 
For further details, please email Alberto, who will also share details about the scholarships available alberto_portugheis@yahoo.co.uk

http://www.hufud.org

https://opusmusica.org/masterclass.html (Masterclasses)

Patsy Toh (Mrs Fou Ts’ong- https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/01/13/roberto-prosseda-pays-tribute-to-the-genius-of-chopin-and-the-inspirational-figure-of-fou-tsong/) teacher at the Purcell School of Firoze Madon and also Magdalene Ho ,both now in the class of Dmitri Alexeev at the RCM .Magdalene (19) was the winner last weekend of the Clara Haskil Competition
Maestro Portugheis with his ‘boys’
Nicolas Absalom.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/08/15/the-thomas-harris-international-piano-foundation-part-12/
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/11/10/viva-alberto-portugheis-and-the-thomas-harris-international-piano-foundation/
I have heard Nicolas many times over the past five years in the various competitions and masterclasses held in collaborazione with the late Mrs Harris and the foundation created by her to celebrate the memory of her son who had also been mentored by Maestro Portugheis .
Nicolas has matured ,via his studies in Weimar and Berlin into an artist of stature.One can gauge the maturity and musicianship of an artist in performances of the genius of Mozart that Schnabel famously decreed was too difficult for adults but too easy for children.Nicolas is now a mature young man and his Mozart was of great clarity and purity and technically impeccable showing great style.
Of course the Ravel Toccata showed of his technical preparation but above all showed his musical intelligence choosing a tempo in which Ravel’s enchanted sound world could ravish and seduce as well as astonish!
Zoltan Galyas
Zoltan Galyas I have not heard before and was intrigued to hear that he had to take his two children to school before joining the class at 10 am in Steinways.Talking to him afterwards too I was full of admiration for a born pianist ,as he so clearly demonstrated ,who was fully employed playing in Hotels and clubs in order to survive with a young family ( similar of course to the ‘menial’ tasks that Bach and Mozart had to undertake for their ‘masters’ in order to survive ).A pianist who has hands like limpets that are made to cling to the keys ,never hitting but digging deep into each key where his fingers are so obviously at home.
A Chopin third Scherzo ,despite the odd blemishes,that was played by a true musician who could shape the majestic octaves horizontally into a musical line that led so naturally into the magical chorale that is heralded with such majesty.A coda of lightening speed but with fingers that knew where they were going but a driver that just needed to be less in a hurry!
As Zoltan had explained he had started studying the Fourth Scherzo and was working now backwards and has arrived at the doorstep of the First .The fourth is a work close to his heart as was obvious from the warmth and control he could coax out of this wonderful black beast that Steinways so graciously allow real pianists to perform on in their beautiful new streamlined show room.
Firoze Madon
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/05/06/thibaudet-inspires-at-the-rcm-in-london/
I had forgotten that I had heard Firoze play in a masterclass at the RCM of Thibaudet and I remember how impressed I was with his inborn musicality and sensitivity to sound.He had great respect for the Beethoven op 90 Sonata where the rests above all were so precise but also the rhythmic energy and sense of architectural shape.The Schumann Novelette was played with great contrasts between the opening strident chords and the romantic sweep of the composers poetic soul.’Marcato e con forza’ but in Firoze’s hands it was never allowed to become hard or ungrateful but full and expansive as he allowed the music to pour from his youthful hands with the same spirit with which the composer had obviously penned them.From the opening bass C sharp Firoze created a panorama of beauty and continuous mellifluous flights of invention in Chopin’s miraculous outpouring of song that is his Barcarolle.A performance of great authority and aristocratic musicianship that could dig deep into the soul of Chopin without any superficiality or excess.
Nikita Lukinov
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/05/nikita-lukinov-at-st-marys/
I think all of us present today were aware that we were in the presence of a young master.
A control and authority where delicacy and rhythmic energy combined in an Allegro con brio that was played with ravishing style and colour allied to dynamic rhythmic energy.The famous double thirds he organised to give the utmost precision without the terror of having to start a sonata already on a slippery slope .A bit like op 111 or op 106 should we play it like a master pianist or a master musician ?Nikita is both as he demonstrated with his masterly musicianship throughout.Not sure Arrau or Serkin would have forgiven him his pianistic trickery though!An Adagio that was barely whispered as it flowed on a continuous current of grandeur and beauty .Scintillating clarity to the scherzo with a trio that was just great washes of sound .The Beethovenian elegance of the Allego assai was played with transcendental control where the composer already transforms the inherited Sonata form into a new style of elegance with genial surprises and weight.
The Schnabel Edition of the the 32 Sonatas was a just prize for a young musician headed for the heights
Maestro Portugheis presenting the Schnabel Beethoven Edition to Nikita in recognition of his masterly performance of the longest and most important of the early Sonatas.
Work behind the scenes with scrupulous attention to the composers indications – transforming them into sounds with humility respect and artistry
Following the score during the performance – this is where an interpretation is born and the starting point for an artist to bring the composers wishes to life.
Yisha Xue of the National Liberal Club where Nikita will perform on the 6th November in the KT series En Blanc e Noir

Patsy Toh (centre) with Firoze Madon and his mother

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