My first album, a double CD with the world premiere recording of the work Toccata seconda per pianoforte by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988) is being released this month by Piano Classics. This is one of the most beautiful, accessible works by this enigmatic composer and a perfect introduction to his music. More info at the Piano Classics website here.
This month’s issue of the Spanish musical magazine Ritmo publishes an interview with me, in which I speak about less frequent repertoires, composers that interest me – Sorabji of course -, my past life as a research scientist, among other topics. (Apologies to non-Spanish speakers – I may post a translation of it when I get a little time.) I hope you enjoy reading it!
There will be another performance of Sorabji’s Toccata seconda per pianoforte next month in Madrid:
14 March 2019, 11:30 am
Auditorium, Conservatorio “Teresa Berganza”
C/ Palmípedo, 3 (Madrid)
Admission is free (but seats are limited).
Here is an extract from my previous performance at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford, the first movement “Preludio-Toccata”.
I will perform Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Toccata seconda per pianoforte for the second time on 27 January 2019, 7 p.m., at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building (St Hilda’s College, Oxford, UK). This will be part of an afternoon of concerts celebrating Sorabji’s music, beginning with a piano and voice recital by soprano Betty Makharinsky and pianist Jonathan Powell – who will also perform several solo piano works – followed by the first UK performance of Toccata seconda since the composer himself premièred it in Glasgow in 1936 at what was going to be his last public appearance as a pianist.
In 2019 I will be performing the work Toccata seconda per pianoforte by Kaikhosru Sorabji (1892-1988), an English composer of Indian ancestry who wrote some of the longest, most complex – and certainly most fascinating – works in the piano repertoire. Toccata seconda (1934) is a two-and-a-half-hour-long work that has been performed in concert only twice before – the first time by Sorabji himself – and is therefore a true rarity of piano literature.
I will play this work for the first time in Spain in Sala Eutherpe (León) on January 12, 2019, starting at 8.00 pm (not at 7.00 pm!). More information here (in Spanish only). Continue reading
Abel Sánchez-Aguilera 