The concerts of the Artist Residency Series are the culmination of the participation of tomorrow’s music stars- young and brilliant pianists who come to the festival to work with the artist faculty of Porto Pianofest and prepare for tours, recordings, important concerts, and to make their art known to the world. Six pianists are chosen, from all continents, to perform in a solo recital and share their unique musical ideas with our welcoming audience in Porto.

This single ticket includes entrance to the full day of Artist Residency Concerts for August 8th, with recitals at 18h00 and 19h30. Join us for one concert that evening, or both!

At 18h00, British-Irish pianist Leyla Cemiloglu will perform an all Spanish program, including many rarely performed works.

At 19h30, Canadian pianist Zi Qi Susannah Zou, will be performing works by Beethoven, Scriabin, and Prokofiev.

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Program Notes from the Artist:

This programme aims to examine ideas of depiction and perception across a wide range of Spanish composers, spanning a hundred and ten years from 1911 to 2021, and to invite the audience to find their own inspiration from the music, art and places showcased. The starting point of the programme, Imatges by Òscar Colomina i Bosch, is a collection of three pieces inspired by famous landmarks in the city of Valencia and its surroundings, as well as by the sensuous poetry of Vicent Andrés Estellés. These landmarks are: Valencia’s Cathedral and the Plaça de la Verge, Malvarossa Beach and L’Horta, and the Portada del Palau del Marqués de Dos Aigües. Additionally, each movement pays homage to a 20th century composer: Henri Dutilleux, Xavier Montsalvatge and Gyorgy Ligeti. Mompou’s Paisajes, composed 70 years before Imatges, contains postcards from Barcelona – La fuenta y el campana is inspired by a courtyard in the Gothic Quarter near the Cathedral, and El Lago is inspired by Parc Montjuïc. Following on from this suite, I thought it pertinent to include Elisenda Fábregas’s fantastic Homenatge a Mompou, commissioned in 2006 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his death. Fabregas herself played for Mompou in Barcelona in 1978 and writes that she feels a great affinity for his music. Then, to muddy the waters a little, the mysterious Mirage serves to prompt us all to question the nature of perception, and to wonder where our own inspiration can take us, before the programme concludes with a classic example of music inspired by art, the well-loved Granados work, El Pelele. This ‘escena goyesca’ is one of the few inspired by a specific Goya painting and conveys its buoyancy with absolute joy. This programme seeks to celebrate the broad refraction of responses and emotion that we can draw from music and the arts.