This article is posted with the permission of the author and Oberlin Conservatory
by Cathy Partlow Strauss
Rising Canadian pianist Bruce Liu, winner of the 18th Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland, will perform the closing program on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series 2022-23 season. The concert is at 2:30 p.m. on April 30 in historic Finney Chapel.
Liu will play pieces by Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt—two great pianist-composers who expanded the piano repertoire in ways that still astound and move artists and audiences.
He describes the music on his spring recital programs as “operatic and full of romantic scenes.”
This concert features Chopin—the poet of the piano—at two distinct stages in his tragically brief career: his early time in Poland in the 1820s, and his artistic maturity during the following decade in Paris. Liu has linked each half of the recital with pieces based on Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni—Chopin’s virtuoso variations on Zerlina and Don Giovanni’s duet and the impassioned fireworks of Liszt’s Réminiscences de Don Juan—both riveting showcases for a pianist. The Liszt is extremely demanding technically and it’s considered to be among the most taxing works and in the entire piano solo repertoire. Liu will also perform Chopin’s emotionally complex Second Sonata in B-flat minor.
“I’m very excited to bring the Chopin program and also combine a Liszt piece,” says Liu. “The main theme for me is the Mozart Don Giovanni opera—the Chopin variations and the Liszt Don Juan. This combination has been a dream for me for a long time.”
Following this Oberlin performance, Liu will take the same program to New York for his Carnegie Hall debut on May 19—still a milestone moment in any musician’s career.
After Liu’s win at the career-making Chopin Competition in fall 2021, the now 25-year-old artist was launched onto the international scene, releasing his highly regarded debut album on Deutsche Grammophon and embarking on a marathon globe-crossing tour. He has now performed in important cultural centers on four continents, including Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Tokyo, Seoul, Abu Dhabi São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Toronto, and Montreal, among many others.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com April 25, 2023.
