It was held in Corn Exchange in 8:10pm, 9th December. The conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchstra is Andris Nelsons, who is a Latvia. The soloist is called Louis Lortie, who is a French-Canadian. He is particularly good at playing Chopin, Ravel and Beethoven.
Here is the program at that night:
Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Concerto No.5 "Emperor"
Rachmaninoff - Symphony No.2
Although there is only two pieces, the performance was not short at all and is very impressive. For the "Emperor" by Beethoven, The orchestra has played very well as the chords are strong enough "ff" parts, and the piano has a very refined technique and has done a great job in displaying the best best tone quality.
The second one is Rachmoninoff's Symphony No.2. I think the orchestration of this piece is really rich and great because lots of instruments are used in this piece and they blend together perfectly, creating a enjoyable atmoshpere for the audience to listen to.
It was held in St John's Bar in Cambridge Corn Exchange at 6:00pm, 24th October. The conductor of the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio is called Terje Mikkelsen, who is a Norwegian. He is the principle guest conductor of this orchestra. The violin soloist is called Alena Baeva, who is a Russian.
The program at that night is as follow:
Ole Olsen - The Wild Hunt of Thor
Jean Sibelius - Voilin Concerto in D minor, Op.47
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Symnphony No.4
The first piece is rarely heard - even the composer is rarely heard. It is a tone poem depicting a kind of Ride of the Valkyries by Qagner and showing the Norweigan mythlogy. It is quite good and we all enjoyed it. The seond one is a violin concerto by Sibelius. It is relatively long but the performance of the soloist was impressive. The last one is Symphony No.4 by Tchaikovsky. As I have to play the timpani part for the audition, I have listened to the timpani part carefully and looked at how he played. I think he has maintained a steady rhythm and this is very hard as the notes in the timpani part is very hard to be counted. But he has played a little bit too loud thus has covered the flute ahnd violin part when the timpani start to play "mf" - "ff" parts.
It was held in Bateman Auditorium in Gonville and Caius College in 11th September, 6:30pm. The pianist is called Gulsin Onay who is a Turkish.
Program of that day is as follow:
1. Ludwig van Beethoven - Sonata in C# minor, Op.27 no.3 "Quasi una Fantasia"
2. Fedrick Chopin - Nocturne in F# minor, Op.48 No.3
3. Fedrick Chopin - Grande Polonaise Brilliante Op.22
4. Fedrick Chopin - Andante Spianto
5. Claude Debussy - Images, Livre II
6. Robert Schumann - ABEGG variantions Op.1
7. Bela Bartok - 6 Sketches Op.9b
I can feel the emotion of the piece when she plays Chopin, because I think she is particularly good at playing Chopin's pieces. She plays "Images" very well too, not too loud but still can bring out the beautiful melody. Although there is a little bit mistakes when she played the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, the overall performance was really satisfied. She has played a few more encore pieces and there are awesome too.
