Photo credit: Andy Steven
COVID19 hesitancy has hindered bookings for a one-off Adelaide concert by world-famous Russian pianist Konstantin Shamray which, in normal times, would be a sell-out performance.
Running Sunday at the Lifeflow Meditation Centre at Glen Osmond Road, Frewville, such a performance would normally sell out the entire 100-person capacity weeks before the show. The concert was intended to kick off celebrations of Lifeflow’s 40th anniversary in October this year.
However, even with a limited COVID-compliant 60-seat audience, organisers still have empty seats, just three days before the concert.
Australian-based Russian pianist Konstantin Shamray is described as an exhilarating performer with faultless technique and fearless command of the piano, who enjoys performing at an international level with the world’s leading orchestras and concert presenters. Konstantin is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatoire, one of the three great piano tuition institutions in the world, along with the Paris Conservatoire and Julliard School in New York.
Lifeflow founder Graham Williams said such an intimate concert by Konstantin would normally sell out weeks beforehand. “Konstantin is an incredibly gifted musician whose reputation is well-deserved,” he said. “The last movement of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit (Gaspard of the Night), called Scarbo (the Goblin), is the most difficult piece of music ever written for piano. Ravel deliberately wrote it that way. Konstantin will play this piece on Sunday – and can play it magnificently without even trying!”
In 2008, Konstantin burst onto the concert scene when he won First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. He is the first and only competitor to date in the 40 years of the competition to win both First and People’s Choice Prizes, in addition to six other prizes. He then went on to win First Prize at the 2011 Klavier Olympiade in Bad Kissingen, Germany and has performed at the Kissinger Sommer festival. In July 2013, following chamber recitals with Alban Gerhardt and Feng Ning, he was awarded the festival’s coveted Luitpold Prize for “outstanding musical achievements”.
Konstantin will perform some of his favourite works by Liszt and Rachmaninov, as well as Scarbo by Ravel, from 3-4pm this Sunday, August 29, at the Lifeflow Meditation Centre, 8/259 Glen Osmond Rd, Frewville.
General admission tickets cost $44 while online viewing tickets cost just $10. You can book tickets at https://lifeflow.com.au/events/konstantin-shamray-in-concert/.
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