Keyboard Trust Recital – UPDATE

PROGRAMME

Olivier MESSIAEN
Two Préludes
La colombe
Les sons impalpables du rêve

Claude DEBUSSY
Selections from Études, L. 136
No. 1 Pour les cinq doigts
No. 2 Pour les tierces
No. 5 Pour les octaves
No. 6 Pour les huit doigts

Oliver Knussen
Ophelia’s Last Dance, Op. 24 (2010)

Claude DEBUSSY
Selections from Études, L. 136
No. 8 Pour les agrèments
No. 9 Pour les notes repetées
No. 11 Pour les arpèges composées

Ludwig van Beethoven 
Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109
I. Vivace, ma non troppo
II. Prestissimo
III. Gesangvoll, mit innigster empfindung. Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo

BIOGRAPHY

Described by the Boston Music Intelligencer as a “heroic piano soloist” with “stunning virtuosity”, Chinese-American pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu is establishing a reputation as a captivating performer with distinctive intelligence and sensitivity. 

George has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and collaborated with conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas, Stefan Asbury, Kensho Watanabe, Vinay Parameswaran, and Jonathan Berman. He has appeared at international venues such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, while his live performances and interviews have been featured on several public television and radio broadcasts around the world, such as In Tune on BBC Radio 3, Performance Today on National Public Radio, and On Stage At Curtis in Philadelphia. 

After a chamber music tour of Latin America in the summer of 2019 in a trio with violist Roberto Diaz, this season sees George make important solo debut performances in London (Steinway Hall), Washington D.C. (Phillips Collection), and Chicago (Chicago Cultural Center), as well as appearing for the first time in Wales (St David’s Hall) and France (Festival Saint-Mère). In March, George gives world premieres of new solo piano works by Philip Cashian, Robert Saxton, and Mark-Anthony Turnage at the Royal Academy of Music. 2020 also marks the second year of the TaoArts Chamber Music Festival, an annual series in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area of which George is the Founder and co-Artistic Director. 

Interested in collaborative work, George has performed in various capacities, from conducting ensembles, to being an active chamber musician with duo partners and ensembles around the world, to collaborating with choreographers in interdisciplinary dance productions. An avid performer of contemporary music, George has collaborated with Krzysztof Penderecki, Harrison Birtwistle, George Lewis, Unsuk Chin, Matthew Aucoin, and Freya Waley-Cohen. In addition, he is an active composer himself, having completed several works for solo piano and performed his own cadenzas to Mozart piano concerti. 

After a widely acclaimed performance as piano soloist in Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie alongside Stefan Asbury at the Tanglewood Music Festival, George was then selected as a New Fromm Player, being featured as a piano soloist in Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques with Vinay Parameswaran, as well as collaborating with the quartet in residence and the members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). 

After receiving a bachelors in economics from Harvard University, George studied at the Curtis Institute of Music under Jonathan Biss and Meng-Chieh Liu, and then at the Royal Academy of Music under Christopher Elton and Joanna MacGregor. He has also worked intensively with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, specifically on the music of Messiaen and Debussy. George is currently a piano fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.