Some extraordinary playing from Cristina Bruno for the first in the series of Opus Musica concerts at St James’s Sussex gardens directed by Alberto Portugheis, the eclectic veteran pianist and Renaissance man par excellence.

A pianist of Swedish-German descent with a curriculum that would strike fear into any musicians setting out today.

Working with Lipatti’s teacher Florica Muzicescu and later with Maria Curcio in London. A personal invitation from Celibidache to play Schumann opened a career that has spanned many years of playing with some of the finest musicians and orchestras throughout the world .

But she was more interested in the potential of the human being, and new faculties arose in her which enabled her to broaden her professional activity by developing a totally intuitive capacity for empathy and connection with other people, for whom she improvises their personal music.

Improvising too for significant situations concerning Humanity and the Earth.

Although a classical concert pianist she has also been an instrument of therapy or healing since 1991, and as such she improvises inspirationally in individual or group sessions, or concerts for general situations or purposes.

Rosemary Brown springs to mind being visited by composers during the night and dictating to her new works, or Eurythmy conceived in 1911 when a widow brought her young daughter, Lory Smits, who was interested in movement and dance, to Rudolf Steiner.

It also coincides with how the winner of the Busoni competition was introduced to us by the directer of the competition. A young Chinese pianist who had to soak up the atmosphere before starting to improvise arriving eventually at works written by others.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/01/26/yifan-wu-on-the-road-to-el-dorado-marco-scolastra-presenting-the-2026-concert-season/

As Fou Ts’ong explained when he was awarded the Mazurka prize in the Chopin competition in Warsaw much to the surprise of a populous who thought their National Dance could only be understood by them. ‘But the soul is universal and knows no barriers, and Chinese poetry contains the same sentiments as the music of Chopin!’ https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/01/13/roberto-prosseda-pays-tribute-to-the-genius-of-chopin-and-the-inspirational-figure-of-fou-tsong/

Madame Bruno opened her programme with music bequeathed to us by Mompou, Albeniz and Scriabin and immediately revealed a sound that I have not heard from this piano before. A luminosity and glowing radiance that belied its proud Bostonian pedigree. An arch of the hand that like Argerich or Rubinstein defies age as it can feel every key with an extraordinary sensibility as ten fingers are transformed into an orchestra of infinite colours. Some ravishing playing with passionate outbursts in Albeniz and refined good taste in Scriabin.

So this was the real thing and maybe we should sit up and open our ears to listen to what she has to say.

Since the piano cannot reflect the sounds and vibrations that would mirror the higher spiritual world or the earthy profundities ,Madame Bruno compensates by giving taps, light or strong if necessary, on the wooden part of the instrument; at the right corner for expressing high spiritual sounds ,at the left for deep earthy sounds.

There was not a big audience but such were the vibrations that we gave off that Madame Bruno whose pseudonym is Elyseï overran her improvisations time and as the church clock struck two, orchestral musicians started to appear for the rehearsal for the evening concert in this beautiful church.

So no time for Schubert or Bach but we had been treated to some wondrous sounds of glowing luminosity and beauty from a true artist with a soul and a pianistic mastery of enviable pedigree.

Leeds launch for Fanny Waterman’s brain child that she created in the 60’ s with her own unshakeable force and will power.

Fanny is no longer but her energy remains and is the guiding light for the team that now show us that Leeds still can lead

Sir Stephen Hough is now at the helm and by God they got it right.

A local lad who has taken the world by storm just as Fanny had done . Fanny always used to say to me ‘ you are so eloquent Chris ‘ but that is nothing compared to Sir Stephen’s knowing words of wisdom as he outlined the use of a competition.

Fanny at 99 was all ready to return to the helm but little did she expect that Sir Stephen would eventually replace her.

Fanny was unique and irreplaceable but my God I think Sir Stephen has got it right : ‘ It is not to find faults but to find the strengths of young artists on the crest of a wave. If recognised and nurtured instead of being injured and scarred they can grow and become true artists where quality not quantity are the true values in art’

Cherkassky adored Stephen’s playing as he said to me on listening to another star prize winning pianist playing the complete Beethoven cycle ‘ . ‘ I don’t think they listen to themselves ‘ .

Well Sir Stephen certainly listens to himself but also to others and his understanding of the use of International competitions is like a breath of fresh air in a market where top of the class has become the ethos of aspiring young artists who are forced by survival to think more of themselves than the composers they are serving.

Humility must go hand in hand with mastery as Sir Stephen has shown us for years in music and now with his wise words is so eloquently ready to lend his voice too , rightly taking his place by Fanny’s side at the helm of her impossible dream.

Rubinstein got it right ……..talent cannot be taught but it can be ruined if not nurtured with care and with a mutual selfless love of music.

https://youtu.be/gex0sOR7XZ0?si=4iPkqtDJI5DSykql

Leeds leads indeed !

Piano Competitions a consideration

The rising star of Anna Avramidou playing her final concert with the Purcell School Symphony orchestra before moving on to the Royal Academy of Music where she will continue her training with Tessa Nicholson.

Already a seasoned performer who I heard last month in Cadogan Hall playing Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with her fellow Cypriot Marios Papadopoulos and his Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/12/27/marios-papadopoulos-a-giant-strides-the-city-of-dreaming-spires/

No ordinary performance for an eighteen year old with this genial preparation for the Ninth Symphony, playing by heart because the music is so ingrained within her youthful being. As she demonstrated once again last night in Milton Court with a performance of the Tchaikovsky B flat minor concerto that was played with an authority that belied her anagraphical age. She imbued the music with beauty and radiance as well as technical mastery and aristocratic good taste.

I had heard Anna play in Cyprus a year ago in a masterclass with a brilliant young Italian pianist who had been invited to give a recital at the Pharos Arts Foundation by the Keyboard Trust. A masterclass the day after saw some valiant local pianists receive guidance from this young Italian star. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/02/20/giovanni-bertolazzi-at-the-pharos-arts-foundation-cyprus-power-and-poetry-combine-with-mastery/

The last to play was a young lady who when she began the ‘Appassionata’ Giovanni and I looked at each other in amazement such was the authority and intelligence of her playing of a sonata that has many traps for those that do not look closely. It reminded me of Alim Beisembayev’s masterly and intelligent performance that I had just heard at the Wigmore Hall. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/01/06/alim-beisembayev-at-the-wigmore-hall-bewitched-and-enriched-by-the-man-on-the-high-wire/

Who is your teacher I asked :’ Tessa Nicholson’ !

Enough said ………….another rising star who will enrich our lives with musical integrity and mastery for years to come !

Wednesday, 1 July 2026 12.00

Bach Toccata in G BWV 916 Brahms Klavierstücke op. 119, Beethoven Sonata op 101, Godowsky Java Suite part 1

Kasparas Mikužis in Hampstead Garden Suburb for St Jude’s annual cultural feast. Kasparas may be far from home but his Lithuanian heritage ignited the magnificent Steinway D with sounds of glowing crystalline beauty that reminded me of the sound of Géza Anda whose last concert I had heard fifty years ago in nearby Mill Hill School. It is a fluidity of sound created by relaxed natural movements allied of course to well trained fingers . Nowhere is Agosti’s dictum more evident than with the many Lithuanian pianists who are emerging from our Academies. ‘ Fingers of steel but wrists of rubber ‘ which of course was directly passed down from Agosti’s mentor, Busoni who in turn was descended from Liszt.

Kasparas even paid homage to a fellow Lithuanian Leopold Godowsky, whose first book of his Java suite closed this midday concert . It was Rubinstein who famously said that even if he practised for five hundred years he would never be able to play as Godowsky. After leaving Godowsky’s home one night, Josef Hofmann told Abram Chasins: ‘ Never forget what you heard tonight; never lose the memory of that sound. There is nothing like it in the world.’

It is a sound that Kasparas used to illuminate the ‘Gamelan’ with the magic atmosphere that he created from masterly use of the pedals and of his horizontal stroking of the keys . The ‘shadows and reflections’ of Godowsky’s puppet show was where Kasparas could produce mellifluous sounds of French nasal refinement. The final piece in this selection from the Java Suite was ‘a great day’ indeed with not only a refined palette of sounds but a transcendental outpouring requiring a mastery that is of very few.

Kasparas chose to open the recital with Bach’s last of his seven early Toccatas not the first as advertised. Playing with a crystalline clarity and giving a refined shape to the streams of notes that conversed as they chased each other with an invigorating ‘joie de vivre ‘. An Adagio of radiance of glowing timeless beauty reaching out to the Toccata that burst onto the scene with a fugato of voices that entered one by one building into a joyous outpouring of hypnotic rhythmic energy. A sound that was never hard but where each voice flowed with its own lightweight volition joining forces and creating a knotty twine of extraordinary luminosity and clarity.

Brahms’s four pieces op 119 were the last of his works for piano and are ‘lullabies of grief’ but also of exhilaration and nostalgia. In Kasparas’s hands they became a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions with an extraordinary palette of sounds of chameleonic colours. From the first with a glowing fibral frailty of reticent beauty as the second carves waves of capricious sounds of bewilderment, turning into passing passionately constructed clouds that dissolve with disarming simplicity and profound intimacy. The playful third was with beguiling freedom and fancy free washes of jeu perlé embellishments . The last played with imperious authority and sumptuous Philadelphian sounds dissolving into a wondrous chorale with notes dropping from above with jewel like constancy. The central episode was of music box simplicity before the final extraordinary triumphant ending that Kasparas played with aristocratic control.

The main work on the programme was Beethoven’s Sonata op 101. Kasparas revealed it as Beethoven’s true pastoral sonata with an opening movement of ethereal fantasy played with a glowing whispered fluidity. The March was played with dynamic drive but never of hardness but always of a wonderful clarity and sense of architectural line. A poignant quasi religious intensity to the Adagio was contrasted with the bubbling vivacity of the Allegro . The transcendental difficulties dispatched with pastoral freshness and scintillating brilliance .

Susana Walton 100 celebrations with Guy Johnston and friends

Kasparas Mikužis is a Lithuanian-born pianist based in London. Named as one of Classic FM’s ‘Rising Stars’ for 2025, he has taken the stages of various highly respected venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Lithuanian National Philharmonic. In May 2025, Kasparas was one of the winners of the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) international auditions.

Highlights include recitals at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, UK, the Krzysztof Penderecki Centre in Lusławice, Poland and his debut at Wigmore Hall in London. Kasparas has also performed at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva on multiple occasions. Other notable appearances include performances at the season-opening concert of the Kharkiv Philharmonic Hall with the Kharkiv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under conductor Yuri Yanko. He also performed as a solo artist at the Eudon Choi show during London Fashion Week 2023.

In 2023, he made his debut with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra at the Lithuanian Philharmonic in Vilnius. Later that year, he was invited to perform for the Lithuanian and Polish presidents on Lithuanian Statehood Day at the Presidential Palace. In recognition of his representation of Lithuania on the international stage, Kasparas was honoured with a letter of gratitude from the President of the Republic of Lithuania.

The 25/26 season sees Kasparas perform Gershwin’s Concerto in F with the Basingstoke Symphony Orchestra, as well as working on a new CD with the Royal Academy of Music. He will collaborate with fellow YCAT artist Nathan Amaral for a series of concerts in early 2026, as well as performing solo recitals across the UK and at the Norsjø Chamber Music Festival in Norway.

Kasparas completed his undergraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Diana Ketler, and his postgraduate studies under Professor Christopher Elton. Since 2023, he has also worked closely with Gabriela Montero through OAcademy.

Kasparas Mikužis in Florence ‘A room with a view resounding to sounds of radiance and beauty’

Kasparas Mikužis at La Mortella creating magic sounds in Walton’s paradise on Ischia

Kasparas Mikuzis at the Wigmore Hall Masterly playing of fluidity and ravishing beauty