EVENTS
May 11, 2015
RONAN MAGILL AT STEINWAY HALL
Free Admission
RONAN MAGILL – Tuesday 12th May, 6pm, Steinway Hall, London
PROGRAMME
“Modlitwa” (“Prayer”) Roxanna Panufnik (1968 – )
Sonata No.21 in C major Op.53 – “Waldstein” Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Allegro con brio;
Introduzione: Adagio molto
Rondo: Allegretto moderato
“Cloches à travers les feuilles” from “Images” Book 2 – Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
“Lamentation for the Sea Dead” – Ronan Magill
Poème Op.32 No.1 – Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Mazurka in C sharp minor Op.30 No.4 – Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Etude in F major Op.10 No.8 – Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Ballade No.1 in G minor Op.23 – Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Ronan Magill (born Sheffield, UK, 1954) is a British concert pianist and composer. Born to Irish parents in Sheffield, Ronan Magill was a pupil at Ampleforth College, the prominent Catholic boarding school in North Yorkshire. Having begun to study with Fanny Waterman, he met Benjamin Britten, who, impressed by his abilities, became the young Magill’s mentor “I was amazed at his general musicality and intelligence and his is a remarkable gift”. This relationship lasted until Britten’s death in 1976.
Magill was among the first intake of students at the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he was taught by Marcel Gazelle. As a student at the Royal College of Music, Magillstudied with David Parkhouse and John Barstow (piano) and Philip Cannon (composition). While at the College, he was awarded all the major prizes for both disciplines, finally graduating with the Hopkinson Gold Medal for piano and the Cobbett prize for composition.
After his Wigmore Hall and South Bank debuts in 1974, Magill moved to Paris to study with Yvonne Lefebure at the Conservatoire; while there, he won the Premier Prix for piano, and in the years that followed made a number of appearances on French radio and television. His later teachers include Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Pierre Sancan and Nikita Magaloff.
In 1985 Magill was the winner of the First Milosz Magin International Piano Competition for Polish Music (this led to a well-received tour of Poland); in 1990 he was chosen to assist Mstislav Rostropovich in the preparations for his Jubilee concert. Magill’s second international competition victory was in 1994, when he won the Third British Contemporary Piano Competition. This led to appearances throughout the UK, including one at the 1995 Huddersfield International Contemporary Music Festival, where he performed with the English Northern Philharmonia conducted by Paul Daniel.
Since then he has given recitals at the South Bank, and concerto performances with the Royal Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras, recitals at the South Bank, concertos with the Royal Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras, and recitals at the Lichfield and Abbotsbury Festivals and the AL Bustan Festival in Beirut. In 1999 Magill performed Mozarts Piano Concerto K595 with the Belmont Ensemble at Queen Elizabeth Hall. In recent years, Ronan Magill has visited the Canterbury and Deal Fesivals (2004) and made his first appearance in Japan (2005).
He has been invited back to Japan every year since, appearing throughout the country (Yamanashi Prefecture 2007), (Fukuoka, Miyazaki 2008), (Nagoya, Hammamatsu, Yokohama 2010), with particular success in the Tokyo National Museum, Metropolitan Hall Tokyo and Minatomirai Hall Yokohama (2007), Bunka Kaikan Hall Tokyo (2010), Kioi Hall Tokyo (2012). In 2014 Ronan Magill was invited to be a guest professor and lecturer at Ferris University in Yokohama. During this time he also performed at London’s Wigmore Hall (2010), made his American debut with Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto in Lubbock Texas (2010), and performed twice at London’s Cadogan Hall with Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ (2012), and Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto (2014). He is booked to perform in Japan in May and September 2015.