November 22, 2023 | Zaryadye Concert Hall
XII Moscow Music Festival «Vladimir Spivakov Invites…»
Soloist – Shio Okui, piano
Conductor – Vladimir Spivakov
Tchaikovsky. Polonaise from "Eugene Onegin"
Chopin. Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra in E minor, Op. 11
Webern. Langsamer Satz
Schubert. Symphony No. 4 in C minor («Tragic»), D. 417
For many years, Vladimir Spivakov has kept an eye on growing talented youths and actively sponsored those who seem to be defining the future of performing arts. He always invites to his Festival young musicians who displayed their brilliance with acclaimed wins at important competitions. Among them is young Japanese pianist Shio Okui who has already taken part in his several concert programs and got the support of his Charity Foundation.
The artist was born in Tokyo and started her musical education there before moving to the Moscow Gnessins School to continue studies with famous music teacher Tatyana Zelikman. She has won many awards at contests in Europe, Asia and Russia (The Nutcracker, the Grand Piano Competition, the Vladimir Krainev Competition), in Kazakhstan (Astana Piano Passion), and got a special prize at the Paderewski Competition in Poland. Ignacy Jan Paderewski is considered to have been the utmost performer of Chopin's works, nevertheless Shio decided to play Chopin's Concerto in the final round, thus arousing the appropriate attention of the hypercritical Jury team. At the Vladimir Spivakov Festival, Shio Okui will play together with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia Chopin's First Piano Concerto which demands from a pianist “softness and fineness of touch, lyricism, taste and graciousness in details”.
In Part 2, Vladimir Spivakov will present his interpretation of Schubert's Fourth Symphony – an inspired work of the 19-year-old author who paid tribute to the Viennese classic style on the whole and to the tragic 18th century in particular, perceiving the basics of the future lyrical and dramatic symphonism of the Romanticism era. Many years later Stravinsky called the Tragic Symphony to be “the most stunning opus of Schubert's symphonic achievements”.