A major digital event is to replace the postponed 16th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv. The memory of its legendary dedicatee will be celebrated with the ‘Arthur Rubinstein Virtual PianoFest’, a partnership between the Rubinstein Competition and the Buchmann-Mehta School Of Music at Tel Aviv University (BMSM).
Running on the dates intended for this year’s Rubinstein Competition, 5th-21st May, the festival includes a wide variety of events, encompassing laureates of the Rubinstein Competition, rising pianists on the Israeli and international scene, and leading pedagogues and composers. The events broadly fall into three areas – livestreamed recitals, broadcasts of classic archive performances from the competition’s past years, and supporting discussion-based events. All events take place at 6pm Israel time / 5pm Central European Time / 4pm British Summer Time / 11am Eastern Daylight Time.
The livestreamed recitals will include performances from previous winners of the Rubinstein Competition Boris Giltburg, Alexander Korsantia and Roman Rabinovich. Giltburg, livestreaming from the Netherlands, will play on Sunday May 17th. Rabinovich will livestream his recital from Calgary, Canada, and Korsantia from his home in Boston, both on May 8th. All other live performances will be streamed from the BMSM’s Clairmont Hall, including a nightly recital series featuring 12 young Israeli pianists – all recent winners of national piano competitions and/or members of the Rubinstein Competition Junior Jury and some already making very impressive international inroads in the early stages of their careers.
A classic archive performance will open the festival, on Tuesday May 5th – highlights from the 2014 Rubinstein Competition Gala Concert featuring (the 2011 winner) Daniil Trifonov playing Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, preceded by a performance of Stravinksy’s Les Noces – the Israel Camerata is conducted by Stanley Sperber.
Subsequent archive performances include, among others, Alexander Gavrylyuk giving the 2005 winner’s recital (May 18th), Sara Daneshpour winning third prize at the 2017 competition (May 19th) playing Mozart’s 25th Piano Concerto with the Israel Camerata under Avner Biron and Daniel Ciobanu winning second prize from that same year (May 20th), playing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Omer Wellber. Both are followed by the 2017 winner, Szymon Nehring, playing Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic and Wellber (May 21st).
These and many more events will stream on the Facebook pages / websites of the partner organisations (the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society, the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University, and Haaretz.
For full details of the Arthur Rubinstein Virtual PianoFest see The Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society website (https://arims.org.il).
