site.btaSofia Hosts 13th Piano Extravaganza International Music Festival

The 13th Piano Extravaganza International Music Festival will be on in Sofia from Wednesday until November 25. The focus is on music for piano, the instrument that will be present in all events, the organizers say.

"Most of the artists who come to Piano Extravaganza are not just pianists. In the past, professional musicians used to be composers, performers, teachers and chamber performers all rolled into one. The musician’s personality is hugely versatile," says the Festival’s founder and curator Ludmil Angelov.

"I am happy that we can present people who combine playing the piano with composing, as is the case of Nicolas Giacomelli. Epifanio Comis is a conductor, a pianist and a teacher. Massimo Mercelli performs, teaches, and transcribes music pieces for the flute," Angelov added.

"This diversity is the important thing that we are trying and should be trying to nurture in this dialogue between the generations. We should endeavour to revive this multifarious personality of the musician because it enriches both the performer and the audience," Angelov said further.

Piano Extravaganza was held for the first time in October 2011. It seeks basically to restore world musical heritage by promoting works of high artistic value whose authors have not gained popularity or are overshadowed by the giants. Previous participants include Dina Yoffe, Piotr Paleczny, Seong-Jin Cho, Krassimira Stoyanova, Vesselina Kasarova, Alexandrina Pendatchanska, Artis Quartett, Vesko Eshkenazi and chamber soloists of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Ingolf Wunder, Evgeni Bozhanov, Michail Waiman, Elmira Darvarova, Jiri Barta and Jerome Rose.

So far the Festival has featured over 400 different works, quite a few of them having their first performance in Bulgaria, as well as several world premieres of piano and chamber works.