The second artist in a new series that the director Terry Lewis has very much at heart.

An important space where remarkable young musicians can share their music making with an appreciative audience. These young musicians dedicating their youth to art and having acquired a mastery, are in need of an audience, as it is only with public performance that their art can grow and mature.

Donglai a composer and pianist in his second year of Masters at the Guildhall perfecting his playing under the guidance of the distinguished musicians Carole Presland and Ronan O’Hora .

It was no surprise that this young musician should present a single masterwork from the final year of Schubert’s short life.

The four late Impromptus D 935 are one of the great monuments of the piano literature and are only for real musicians who can penetrate the subtle seemingly simple mellifluous outpouring of Schubert’s final thoughts.

Donglai understood the great architectural shape not only of each piece but also as a whole like a Sonata of four movements.

It is the third Impromptu that found an ideal interpreter as the variations unfolded with sounds of undulating beauty. Great drama and sumptuous full sounds were soon dispelled with the fleeting lightness of a jeux perlé where cascades of delicate sounds just flew from this young artists fingers with a delicacy and beauty that strangely had escaped him in the opening Impromptu.The first Impromptu had opened with clarity and purity of sound but with very little pedal that instead of the grandiose opening that Schubert envisaged it sounded rather more like an imperious march. It was soon dispelled as Donglai added the pedal for the beautiful second subject which is a duet between the soprano and tenor voices on a wave of undulating sounds. Some beautiful playing but it seemed as though the tenor had lost his voice as something of the deeply felt duet was lost. It was in the second Impromptu that the true magic of Schubert was felt as the simple melody was allowed to unfold with poise and delicacy.The wave of sound in the central ( trio) episode was played very beautifully and shaped like a true musician but something of the balance was lost, as in the first Impromptu, and the wonderful lieder element of Schubert of song and accompaniment was slightly sacrificed for clarity of articulation.

The final Impromptu is a wild dance that Donglai seemed to take a little too seriously but the central episode he played with a lightness and style that contrasted with his earlier lack of dance shoes.

Forty minutes that unfolded with exemplary musicianship as you would expect from the ‘Presland/ O’Hora School’ and will mature and take flight as he learns to live and share his performances so generously with his audience, with simplicity and humility, as he did today.

The title of ‘Impromptu’ was not initially Schubert’s own: it was the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger who labelled the first two pieces from Schubert’s first set, D899, as such when he issued them in December 1827. Haslinger may have had in mind the Impromptus of the Bohemian composer Jan Václav Voříšek which had become popular in the early 1820s. Schubert must have known Voříšek’s pieces, and he was happy enough to use the same title when he composed his second set, D935, which he offered to the Mainz firm of Schott & Co in February 1828 as ‘Four Impromptus which can appear singly or all four together’. Schott, however, declined to publish them, and they did not appear in print until more than ten years after Schubert’s death, when Anton Diabelli issued them with a dedication to Liszt. It was Schumann who confidently asserted that Schubert’s second set of Impromptus was really a sonata in disguise. ‘The first impromptu is so obviously the first movement of a sonata, so completely worked out and self-contained’, declared Schumann, ‘that there can be no doubt about it.’ It is true that the first and last of the pieces are in the same key of F minor, but neither is in sonata form.

Donglai Shi Age: 25

He studied piano under Prof. Gregory Chaverdian (2013-2016, private lessons)- Entered Marianopolis College in the Music Program (piano), under the tutorship of Prof. Kyoko Hashimoto (2016-2018)- Entered the Schulich School of Music, continuing piano with Prof. Hashimoto (2018-2022), composition with Prof. Denys Bouliane (2019-2022) and orchestral conducting with Prof. Alexis Hauser (2020-2022)- Member of the Schulich Singers as baritone (2018-2019)- Member of the McGill Symphony Orchestra (2019, 2021-2022)- Member of the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble (2020)- Graduated from the Schulich School of Music (2022) with an Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition

Studying in M Perf Advanced Keyboard Studies at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, England – BMus Piano Performance + Composition with Minor in Orchestral Conducting (Graduated in June 2022) from Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

– Currently studying piano with Prof. Carole Presland and Prof. Ronan O’Hora at the Guildhall School

Prizes and Awards:

– Full Scholarship from International Music Workshop and Festival (2024, 2019)- Guildhall School General Financial Awards (2023)- World Classical Music Awards S3, Silver Prize in B2 Category (Piano) (2022)- National Finalist, Steppingstones of Canadian Music Competition (2022)- Anna P Gertler Scholarship of Schulich School of Music (2021-2022)- Nominee of Developing Artist Grant of The Hnatyshyn Foundation (2021) Full Scholarship from Orford Music Academy (2020)- Student Excellence Award of Schulich School of Music (2018-2021)- 2^nd Place, CÉGEPs en concert (2018)- Gerald Wheeler Award of Marianopolis College (2018)- 1^st Place, Prix d’expression musicale of Marianopolis College (2018)- 4^th Prize, Golden Key Composition Competition, Senior Category (2017)- 3^rd Prize, Burgos International Music Competition (2015)- National Finalist, Canadian Music Competition (2014, 2015)

Significant Performances:

– Solo concert at the Northwestern Reform Synagogue, London (November 2024)- Concerts of the Guildhall Conductors’ Orchestra as conductor(May, October 2024)- J. Brahms, Horn Trio (Ivan Sutton Chamber Prize Final, May 2024)- Solo recital in Hawkesbury, Ontario, Canada (April, 2023)- “La forteresse des rossignols”, “Chants d’automne”, public recitals with singer Maxence Ferland (Montreal) (May, October, November 2022)- F. Mendelssohn, Piano Trio no.2 (McGill Chamber Music Competition Final, December 2021)- F. Chopin, Piano Concerto no.1 (McGill Concerto Competition Final, October 2021)- C. Franck, Piano Quintet (McGill Chamber Music Competition Final, Montreal, December 2019)- Musical Theatre “Mama mia”, with NUVO — Musical Theatre (Montreal, November 2018)

Significant Compositions:

– Piano Sonata (2022-2023)

– Orchestral suite “The Seasons” (2021-2023)

– Fantasia (for violin and piano, 2020-2021)

– “Within the Child” (for woodwind quintet, 2020)

– Miniatures (for two pianos, 2019-2020)