MAKE A date with Music for Galway for a Valentine’s night concert, featuring a leading Italian pianist seeking to capture the music, art, and romance of Paris in the early 1900s.
Alessandro Taverna will present Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in the Aula Maxima, NUI Galway, on Thursday February 14 at 8pm.
Before that, at 6.45pm in the Aula Maxima’s ground floor, Adrian Le Harivel, curator of British Art at the National Gallery of Ireland, will give an illustrated talk entitled On Parade: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the New Musical Beat.
The Ballets Russes was a Russian dance company founded and taken to Paris by impresario Sergei Diaghilev at the beginning of the 20th century. The end of the 19th century had seen developments in handling tonality, harmony, rhythm, and meter more freely which Diaghilev adapted to modern ballet.
The concert programme will feature music used for Diaghilev’s ballets: Chopin’s ‘Les Sylphides’; Liszt’s ‘Tarantella di Bravura’ from Auber’s The Mute Girl of Portici; De Falla’s ‘Three Dances’ from The Three Cornered Hat; Satie’s ‘Jack in the Box’; and Stravinsky’s Three movements from Petrouchka.
Alessandro Taverna has won numerous awards in international competitions, including first prize in the Minnesota International Piano Competition, second prize in the London International Piano Competition, and Bronze Medal at the Leeds International Piano Competition. He won the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Prize in 2010.
Admission to the lecture is free. Martine’s Restaurant, Quay Street, is offering a Valentine’s special of pre-concert dinner plus performance for €34 per person. Booking is through 091 - 565662.
Tickets are €20/16/6 from Music for Galway (091 - 705962, [email protected] ), Opus II, or www.tht.ie
