March 2, Friday
8:00 PM
Mahaney Center for the Arts, Concert Hall
Renowned for his idiomatic approach to a wide variety of repertoire, pianist Steven Osborne has won numerous awards and prizes, including the 2009 Gramophone Award. His most recent recording of the complete works of Ravel has been called the best Ravel cycle on CD by Classic FM Magazine, with “inspired performances with Award Winner written all over them (5 Stars).” Osborne performs an all-Ravel program, including Gaspard de la Nuit, at Middlebury.
Reserved Seating. Tickets: $25/20/6. http://go.middlebury.edu/tickets or 802-443-MIDD (6433).
Read the press release>>
Video
Pianist Steven Osborne performs Johannes Brahms Rhapsody in B Minor, Op. 79, No. 1 in a March 2005 concert at the Miami International Piano Festival.
Program
MAURICE RAVEL
Sonatine
Gaspard de la nuit
Intermission
Pavane
Menuet sur le nom de Haydn
Maniere Chabrier
Maniere borodin
Serenade Grotesque
Menuet in C# minor
Jeux d’eau
Prelude
La Valse
Artist Biography
Steven Osborne is one of Britain’s foremost musicians, renowned for his idiomatic approach to a wide variety of repertoire from the mainstream classical works of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms to the rarefied worlds of Messiaen, Tippett and Britten. He has won numerous awards and prizes including the 2009 Gramophone Award for his recording of Britten’s works for piano and orchestra, as well as first prize at both the Naumburg International Competition (New York) and Clara Haskil Competition.
Concerto performances take Steven Osborne to orchestras all over the world including recent visits to the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Berlin Symphony, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Salzburg Mozarteum, Finnish Radio Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Sydney Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. With these orchestras he has enjoyed collaborations with conductors including Christoph von Dohnanyi, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ludovic Morlot, Leif Segerstam, Andrew Litton, Ingo Metzmacher, Vladimir Jurowski and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
In the UK he works regularly with the major orchestras, especially with the London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Philharmonia and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras. His concerts are frequently broadcast by the BBC and he performs every year at the Wigmore Hall. He has made nine appearances at the Proms, most recently in July 2011 when he performed de Falla “Nights in the Gardens of Spain”.
Steven Osborne’s recitals of carefully crafted programmes are publically and critically acclaimed. He has performed in many of the world’s prestigious venues including the Konzerthaus Vienna, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, de Doelen Rotterdam, Philharmonie Berlin, Musikhalle Hamburg, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels, De Singel, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Kennedy Center Washington and Carnegie Hall. His regular chamber music partners include Alban Gerhardt, Paul Lewis, Dietrich Henschel and Alina Ibragimova.
He begins the 11/12 season with a recital for the International Piano Series at the South Bank Centre. Orchestral highlights include performances with the London Philharmonic/Jurowski (Prokofiev), Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Adam Fischer (Stravinsky), Royal Flemish Philharmonic/de Waart (Britten), Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon/Morlot (Messiaen), Oregon Symphony Orchestra/Kalmar (Britten) and BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Fischer (Ravel). Following his highly acclaimed recording of the complete works of Ravel (Hyperion) he will be touring this programme across two concerts during spring 2012 including performances at the Wigmore Hall and at De Singel.
Steven Osborne has won many awards for his recordings on Hyperion. In addition to the Gramophone Award in 2009 (Britten), his recording of Rachmaninov’s 24 Preludes was short-listed for a Gramophone Award and won a Schallplattenpreis whilst being chosen as “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, International Record Review, Musical Opinion and The Daily Telegraph: “This is outstanding Rachmaninov playing of acute perception, discretion and poetic sensibility, limpid, powerful and luminous in equal measure.” BBC Music Magazine May 09. His double CD of works by Tippett was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award and his CD of Messiaen’s complete Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus was also nominated for both a Gramophone Award and a Schallplattenpreis in Germany. Other recordings include Debussy’s complete Preludes, solo works by Alkan, Liszt Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, and solo works by Kapustin which was also nominated for a Schallplattenpreis. His latest release, Ravel’s complete music for solo piano, was nominated for a 2011 Gramophone Award.
Born in Scotland in 1971, Steven Osborne studied with Richard Beauchamp at St. Mary's Music School in Edinburgh and Renna Kellaway at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
Artist website www.stevenosborne.com
Press Quotes
“You could have heard a pin drop. Steven Osborne’s power over the hall was absolute … the atmosphere was spellbound” --Daily Telegraph
"If pianos could purr, then the Wigmore’s Steinway would surely have done so, for Osborne stroked it so affectionately, the strings seemed to ring of their own accord…"--The Independent
"The perfectly-voiced piano ,the venue/acoustic, producer and engineer, and an artist who was born to play Ravel combine to make the best Ravel cycle on disc."--Classic FM Magazine
