Vi Aventura, a luxury continuing care retirement community, is proud to sponsor the Miami International Piano Festival as it presents its 2014 Master Series at the Broward Center for The Performing Arts, March 23-25, 2014.
Piano masterpieces by Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt are performed in three successive concerts by master pianists. The Miami International Piano Festival’s Lecturer in Residence, Dr. Frank Cooper, proffers illuminating commentary for all of the recitals, providing fascinating background information and insights.
Italian Pianist Pietro de Maria presents an All Chopin Program on March 23 at 4 p.m. A prize winner at many international competitions, De Maria has performed all of the works of Chopin. He is described as “a poet of sound and a keyboard wizard.” Il Giornale della Musica wrote “The Venetian pianist is always impressive for his attention to the sound, his sense of structure and phrasing, and the union of emotional depth and simplicity of expression, and that natural elegance which, here more than ever, supports and brings to light the music.”
Israeli pianist Amir Katz plays an All Schumann program on March 24 at 7:45 p.m. A first prize winner at many important competitions, Katz has performed at the most distinguished halls in Europe, Asia and North America, such as the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Rudolfinum in Prague, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Philharmonie in Berlin and the Lincoln Center New York. Music critic Lawrence Budman exclaimed “Katz exhibited an impressive sense of artistic daring, unafraid to take the music in different directions than conventional artistic norms. Much of the cycle emerged freshly minted and exhilarating, a remarkable artistic achievement.”
Hungarian pianist Balazs Szokolay, acclaimed Liszt interpreter, performs on March 25 at 7:45 p.m. Szokolay is a prizewinner at many international piano and chamber music competitions, including Usti-nad-Labem, Zwickau, Leeds, Brussels, Montreal, Terni and Budapest. More recently, he has been a frequent juror in major music competitions in countries such as the Netherlands, Italy, Bulgaria and Russia. Szokolay has been a piano professor at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest since 1987. In 2001, he was awarded the prestigious Liszt Prize by the Hungarian Government. South Florida Classical Review “He displayed the requisite big technique – thundering octaves and fistfuls of chords taken at hair-raising speed. But as impressive as the blur his hands made on the keyboard were the passages where he drew from the piano tones of orchestral grandeur…”
For more information, visit www.miami pianofest.com.
