François PINEAU-BENOIS -violin

Alexander KARPEYEV -piano

“The Voices of Exile” 
Russian emigrés Music

Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Gretchaninoff…

Saturday 20 May 2023, 7.30pm, St. Botolph’s Church, TRUNCH.  

This concert features music by Russian composers who decided to leave their homeland after the 1917 Revolution. The programme draws on works they composed in exile and also during the last years of Imperial Russia. The period from the middle of the 19th Century to 1917 was a golden age for the arts in Russia. Many of the great Russian novels and Romantic musical masterpieces emanated from this period.

Violinist of the new generation François Pineau-Benois (Paris), nicknamed by the international press “French virtuoso”, entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) at the age of 14. He holds master degrees in violin and chamber music from the CNSMDP and also studied with Régis Pasquier at the Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot. 

François is a laureate of competitive career grants from the Adami (2023), the Fondation Banque Populaire and Safran pour la Musique (2017) as well as of the prizes from several competitions: the First Prize (duo) at the International Pro Musici Competition (2019, Paris), the Grand Prix of the International Alexander Glazounov Competition (2017, Paris), the Grand Prix Ciboure of the Ravel Academy (2015, Saint-Jean-de-Luz), the Young Artist Award of the International Leopold Mozart Competition (2013, Augsburg) and others.
A musician with an exceptional sound, he has been invited to play with renowned musicians such as François-René Duchable, Régis Pasquier, Roland Pidoux and young musicians in France, Belgium, Russia, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Israel, United Kingdom, Austria.  In 2022 he recorded Matti Murto’s Concertino for Violin and Strings with the Oulunsalo Ensemble, supported by the Finnish Institute of Paris.
François Pineau-Benois plays the historic Italian violin (XVIII) “Le Genève” of French virtuoso of the beginning of XXth century Lucien Durosoir, graciously lent by the Foundation Musicians between War and Peace. He is professor at the Rachmaninoff Conservatory in Paris.

Alexander Karpeyev (London) is ‘one to watch’ according to the International Piano magazine. Russian-born and trained musician, he is now resident in the UK and performs regularly here and abroad as a concerto soloist and chamber musician.
Karpeyev studied at the Moscow Conservatory and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He is the winner of the Dudley International Piano Competition as well as the Norah Sande Award and the holder of a Silver Medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians. In 2014 he completed a performance practice doctoral degree at the City University, based on the Edna Iles Medtner Collection at the British Library.  In recent years, Alexander devoted considerable time to promoting Russian music in London as the Music Curator of the Pushkin House in Bloomsbury, where he appeared both as a soloist and collaborator with guest artists. Going forward he sees it as his mission to devise and direct music festivals that bring specialist performers and scholars together in new and imaginatively informed performance contexts.

PROGRAMME

Valentin SILVESTROV (b.1937) 
Triptych
Two pieces: Intermezzo, Lullaby
[Two] Moments of I. S. B.
Two Serenades

Serge PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)Sonate no. 2, op. 94 bis
          Moderato
          Presto
          Andante
          Allegro con brio

INTERVAL

Sergei RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) Hungarian Dance, Op. 11 no. 2

Alexandre GRECHANINOV (1864-1956) Regrets, op. 9   

Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) :  Suite Italienne
          Introduzione
          Serenata
          Tarantella
          Gavotta con due Variazioni
          Scherzino
          Minuetto e Finale

With a kind support of Belaieff Foundation