Khanh Nhi Luong | Sunshine and Shadows | Beethoven, Bacewicz, Ravel

This recital is promoted by the charity Promote Our Pianists (POP) working together with Kettner Concerts to offer live performances to outstanding young pianists.

Praised as "a rising star of exceptional sensitivity and imagination", Vietnamese pianist Khanh-Nhi Luong won Third Prize and The Lady Roslyn Lyons Bronze Medal at the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition. Nhi's programme opens with Beethoven's calm, nature-inspired 'Pastoral' Sonata, before leaping headlong into Bacewicz's lyrical yet barbaric Piano Sonata No.

2, composed in 1953 at the height of Stalinist cultural censorship. In the second half, Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin is a touching, witty and nostalgic memorial to friends and family who died fighting in the First World War. The recital ends with Ravel's ever-popular Pavane pour une infante défunte, evoking a longing for a long-lost world of little princesses.

The Programme