Valentina Lisitsa-piano, Ukraine/USA

Valentina Lisitsa is not only the first «YouTube star» of classical music; more importantly, she is the first classical artist to have converted her internet success into a global concert career in the principal venues of Europe, the USA, South America and Asia. Valentina posted her first video on the internet platform YouTube in 2007, a recording of the Etude op. 39/6 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The views increased staggeringly; more videos followed. The foundation stone of a social- network career unparalleled in the history of classical music was laid. Thanks to an unwavering dedication towards her audience and personal approach to videos, her YouTube channel now records over 650.000 subscribers and 147 million views with an average 75.000 views per day, whilst her Spotify account has over 1 million listeners monthly. This singular success has led Valentina to perform at some of the world’s most prestigious stages which included a spectacular recital in London’s Royal Albert Hall before an audience of 8000 in June 2012 that sealed her international breakthrough. Live recording of this concert was released on CD and DVD by DECCA only a week after the performance. The release was soon followed by further 9 albums for the same label including every piano concerto by Sergei Rachmaninoff, works by Chopin, Philipp Glass, Liszt and Scriabin as well as CD «Love Story – Piano Themes from the Cinema’s Golden Age» with major film music from the 1920s. In February 2019, for the 125th anniversary of Tchaikovsky’s death, Decca released a special CD-Box Set: the most complete collection of works for solo piano by Tchaikovsky with some of the works having never been recorded before. The past season has seen Valentina perform in Barcelona, Valencia, Istanbul, Gdańsk, Brussels, Pasadena and at the Madison and Amelia Island Chamber Music Festivals in the USA. In the 21/22 season, she is returning to South Korea (Seoul and Daegu), embarks on 7-dates recital tour of Southern Italy, returns to Flagey in Brussels, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and makes a recital debut in Belgrade. Highlights of the past seasons include amongst others a sold-out concert at Auditorio Nacional with the Spanish National Orchestra, where Valentina played all piano concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergej Rachmaninoff in one evening. She has also performed at Berlin Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Wigmore Hall in London, Prinzregententheater in Munich, Carnegie Hall in New York, NCPA in Beijing, Teatro Major in Bogota and at festivals including the BBC Proms, Dvorak Prague Festival and Musica Mundi Chamber Festival in Brussels. In recent seasons, Valentina performed as a soloist with London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, Staatskapelle Dresden, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic. Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Valentina started learning the piano at age three and gave her first public recital a year later. She graduated from Kiev Conservatory subsequently moving to the United States and giving her debut performance in New York in 1995.

Programme:

1. Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit

                                Ondine

                                Le gibet

                                Scarbo

1. Rachmaninoff: Sonata no.2 op. 36 B flat minor

Allegro agitato

Non allegro-Lento

Allegro molto

-Intermission-

1. Chopin: Four Scherzi

1. Chopin: Polonaise-Fantasy op. 64