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26
Thu
May
2018
20:00 |
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$340, $280, $220, $160 |
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Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall |
BUY TICKET
Music
Encore Series: Piano Recital by Dang Thai Son
Dang Thai Son - A Legendary International Pianist from a Bomb Shelter (Savio Lau)
According to Le Monde de la Musique of Paris, pianist Dang Thai Son performs in "an authoritative, intelligent, irreproachable style that goes to the heart of musical sensitivity". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commended Dang as the highest class of pianists with his reliable, amazing technique and unbelievable expression.
Dang Thai Son was awarded the First Prize at the 10th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1980. It was also the first time that an Asian pianist won a top international competition. His legendary life has been compared to Roman Polanski's The Pianist. His started learning piano in a bomb shelter!
Bomb shelter
Dang Thai Son was born in Hanoi, Vietnam. His father was a poet while his mother, Thai Thi Lien, is a musician. Dang began studying piano with his mother at the age of six. Madame Lien was the department head of piano at the music conservatory now known as the Vietnam National Academy of Music.
Life was extremely difficult during the Vietnamese War. In order to seek refuge, the conservatory was evacuated to the countryside, bringing with them only one piano pulled by water buffalos on a cart! During an interview, Dang recalled that students could only practise, 20 minutes for each, on a broken piano that was literally a dwelling place for rats. In order to get more practices, Dang drew the keyboard on a cardboard for fingering exercise. Whenever there was a bombing, staff and students had to take shelter underground. Recordings for students' reference were absolutely non-existent. Very often there was only one copy of scores to go around and students had to make their own copy by hand one after another.
In 1970, Madame Lien was invited to attend the Chopin Competition in Warsaw as an observer and brought back a lot of sheet music and vinyl records. It was the first time that Dang listened to a vinyl record.
At that time the Soviet Union was the big brother of North Vietnam and Russian professionals were frequently dispatched to Vietnam to give instructions. A Soviet pianist discovered Dang after listening him play a simple piece and helped him pursued his training at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Before the teenage Dang leaving for the Soviet Union, he was under the tutelage of the pianist for six months in Vietnam, which set a solid foundation for his subsequent learning.
After arriving at Moscow, Dang enjoyed the best conditions for learning (and food too, he chuckled). He said apart from studying with two eminent Russian musicians, he also benefited from the recordings of Horowitz and Rubinstein. At the end of the three years at the Moscow conservatory, only three students were selected for the International Chopin Piano Competition. Dang Thai Son and Ivo Pogorelich from Yugoslavia were two of them.
Despite his impressive musicality and techniques, Pogorelich was eliminated in the third round. One of the judges, the renowned pianist Martha Argerich, declared Pogorelich a genius and walked out in protest. The story made international headlines and dimmed the glory of the winner Dang Thai Son.
Time will tell
Yet in the fullness of time, Pogorelich went from an immense genius to a talent gone astray. Dang, on the contrary, has been perfecting his skills on even keel. Marked by superb musicality and technicality, his glamourous and vivacious rendition is an ingenious blend of simplicity and depth. Dang is now a highly sought after pianist for both concerts and recordings. For Pogorelich, however, it has been quite some time since he released his last album.
At the concert held in Warsaw in 1999 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of Chopin, Dang was the only non-Polish artist invited to perform with the Warsaw National Opera Theatre Orchestra. More recently, he has been invited three times on a row to sit at the judging panel of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He was also the vice-chairman of the panel for 2015.
Dang is also known for his piety to his mother. In the 2017-18 season, he included Réminiscences de Norma by Liszt in his world tour to celebrate the 100th birthday of his mother Madame Lien. Dang said, "My mother is very much like Norma. Beautiful, clever and courageous. She is an extraordinary woman."
I just can't wait for Dang's recital.