Sunday, October 11, 2009, 3:00pm

Sponsored by
Claudia Moraga

This concert is a fundraiser performance to benefit our Outreach Program which provides musical programs to our schools and other community centers. It is not a part of our regular season series, and individual tickets for this concert are priced at $30.

2005 Cliburn Competition finalist Davide Cabassi was to perform with his wife Russian pianist, Tatiana Larionova, but unfortunately, she has broken her arm and will be unable to perform. Cabassi will play solo, virtuoso piano pieces (see program below).

Davide Cabassi made his orchestral debut at the age of thirteen with the RAI Symphony Orchestra in Milan. He has also collaborated with the Munich Philharmonic, the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, and the Russian Chamber Philharmonic, as well as with several Italian orchestras working with such conductors as Gustav Kuhn, James Conlon, Asher Fisch, and Vladimir Delman, among others. In recital, he has been engaged by most of the prominent musical associations of his native country, including Serate Musicali and Societa dei Concerti in Milan and Festival Pianistico in Brescia and Bergamo. Cabassi has played concerts in Salzburg’s Mozarteum and the Gasteig in Munich, Rachmaninoff Hall in Moscow and  at the 2006 Association of Performing Arts Managers Conference at Carnegie Hall, and tour extensively worldwide.

After graduating from Milan’s Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, Cabassi spent several years as one of the few select students at the International Piano Foundation in Cadenabbia, Italy, where he studied with Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, Rosalyn Tureck, and William Grant Nabore, among others. 

Cabassi has recorded extensively for television and radio broadcasts in Italy. In January 2006, his debut disc for Sony-BMG records, Dancing with the Orchestra, featuring works by Bartok, De Falla, Ravel, and Stravinsky, was released worldwide (U.S. distributor – Allegro). He was featured prominently in the film documentary about the Twelfth Cliburn Competition, In the Heart of Music, which aired on PBS stations and was distributed throughout Europe via the Arte network.

Click here to listen to some of his performances.   A popup window will open, select what you want to hear.  When done simply close it.

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The program should include:

Sonata quasi una Fantasia op. 27 No. 2
"Moonlight"
by Ludwig van Beethoven
I.  Adagio sostenuto
II. Allegretto
III. Presto Agitato

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Capriccio Brillante op. 22
  by Felix Mendelssohn
(1809 - 2009, two hundred year birth anniversary celebration)

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Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante op. 22
by Frederick Chopin

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I N T E R M I S S I O N 

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Pictures at an Exhibition
by Modest Mussorgsky

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(Right & left photos by Ellen Appel) 

(Center photo © Loli Kantor)

Visit his web site

Performance reviews:

 “Davide Cabassi… [was] intense, emotional… in a word, Italian.”

-Geoff Brown, The Times (London)

“He is…an Italian…who represents a new generation in the grand Italian piano tradition…Cabassi showed an impressive command of color and touch in Bach's expressive Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother….More of the same artistry of touch and tone followed in the three movements of Debussy’s Estampes…He has obvious charisma and the ability to take command of an audience.”

-Wayne Lee Gay, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Mr. Cabassi is an expressive pianist with a distinctive personality…and in music of Bach, Debussy and Stravinsky 28-year-old [he] upheld a tradition of lyric Italian pianism.”                 
 -Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News

“Cliburn impressions: The Italians always seem to do well at the Cliburn Competition, and Friday's second player of the day gave the first hint that this year is not going to be an exception. Davide Cabassi opened with a flowing and touching performance of Bach’s Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother, proceeded to a subtle and highly atmospheric performance of Debussy’s Estampes, and then managed to avoid any sense of triteness in an old Cliburn standby, Stravinsky’s Three Movements From Petrouchka. Mr. Cabassi is an expressive pianist with a distinctive personality.”

-Olin Chism, Dallas Morning News  

“Finalist Davide Cabassi…seems likely to be heard from again. This bear-sized pianist’s exquisitely beautiful playing of Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19, was a highpoint of the finals.”

-Tim Smith,The Baltimore Sun

Cabassi performing with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of James Conlon, June 4, 2005. 
(Photo © Rodger Mallison)

Information on Tatiana Larionova

Born in 1979 in Primorskij Krai (URSS) Tatiana Larionova began studying the piano at the age of five. In 1991, she entered the Central Music School in Moscow, where she studied under Professor Yuri Slesarev. After graduating in 1997 with highest rating, Larionova attended the Moscow State Conservatory where she studied until 2004 under Professor Victor Merzhanov, taking, again with best votes, her doctorate.

In 2005 she got a full-scholarship of the International Center for Music, Park University, Missouri where she studied with Professor Stanislav Ioudenitch and attended masterclasses of D. Bashkirov and Fou Ts’ong.

Tatiana Larionova is a prize winner in several international piano competitions, including: “Usti nad Labem” Piano Competition (Czech Republic, 1994); “Stravinskij awards” Interantional Piano Competition (US, 1995);   International F.Liszt Piano Competition (Poland, 1999); third prize, S.Thalberg International Piano Competition (Italy, 2004); second prize, “Premio Seiler” International Piano Competition (Italy, 2004).

Larionova participated in the International Piano Festivals, including “Bodensee-Festival” (Germany) and the International European Piano Forum (Berlin, 2001.

She has performed recitals and concerts in the most important halls in Europe (Russia, Byelorussia, Germany, Poland, France, Austria, Suisse and Italy) and US.

In 2001, Larionova performed Mozart Piano Concerto # 23 in the Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the orchestra of the conservatory conducted by A. Kaluzhnyi with incredible success of public and critic.

Larionova is currently living in Italy, where she regularly performs for the most important societies (as Società dei Concerti in Milano) and she is also passionately dedicated to chamber music (She plays is several different ensemble, from duo to quintet, collaborating very often with instrumentalist from La Scala Theatre) and teaching (Accademia Pentagramma in Milano).

Visit her website.