“Very impressive was the Scherzo, dispatched with a felicitous combination of technical virtuosity, elegant phrasing and quixotic playfulness.”
Read Joseph So’s Musical Toronto Review
“…scintillating recital” Kolesnikov review in Musical Toronto Read More »
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Pavel Kolesnikov (piano), Earl Lee (conductor), Saturday, Feb. 20.
It was a banquet of blurry fingers at Roy Thomson Hall Saturday night, as pianist Pavel Kolesnikov stopped by to lend his musical finesse to Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”. Despite a wonderful concert, his appearance was brief, and left the audience wondering why he wasn’t performing more than just a 25-minute work. It seemed hardly worth the trip from his home in London, England, but it was.
Seemingly coming out of nowhere, Kolesnikov’s career has been on an astonishing rise after winning Calgary’s 2012 Honens Piano Competition. The Siberian pianist has been slinking around the world, with stops at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall and the Konzerthaus Berlin. The next push came from BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artist, which provides young promising artists with performance opportunities and live broadcasts.
Slightly underexposed against TSO’s gang of strings at his back, Kolesnikov’s not so much played Rachmaninoff’s 24 Paganini variations, but rather, painted them. With one of the silkiest runs in the business, his technique was elegant and trim. While skirting concerto territory, its Russian romanticism was strongest at its most hushed moments. Each of the variations was played upside down, sideways and occasionally upright. Kolesnikov’s pedalling was noticeably sparse and tempered with plumes of electric flourishes. Michael Vincent, Toronto Star
Pavel Kolesknikov with the TSO Read More »
Russian Pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, who plays Music in the Afternoon on May 5, 2016, is featured in a Globe and Mail story on the Honens Piano Competition which he won in 2012.
“It completely changed my life,” Kolesnikov says of winning the world’s largest piano prize: $100,000 plus a career-development program worth $500,000, awarded every three years to a twentysomething emerging artist.
Globe Features Kolesnikov Read More »
