Easter Sunday, and I am sitting in a transfer area at Hong Kong airport. After coming all the way from Nashville to here via Chicago (the last flight a 16-hour one), I am not thrilled to wait four hours for the ferry to Macau.
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Some news that I should share on New Year’s Eve: the Governor-General of Canada has announced new members to the Order of Canada, and I have been “promoted” to a Companion – the highest honour Canada can bestow on one of its citizens.
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This year has been an exceptionally busy one, but perhaps one of the best in many ways. My last update was at the end of July. It’s quicker and easier to post things on Facebook and Twitter these days, and I always seem to have 300 emails in my Inbox to deal with. And that’s in my spare time, which is very spare indeed.
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It’s already almost August, and the Trasimeno Music Festival finished three weeks ago. It is hard to describe the huge effort that it takes to produce it, and I would like to thank all those who gave of themselves to make the whole week the big success that it was: artists, staff, volunteers, sponsors, and especially the private donors and audience who came from all over the world to Umbria for this magical week.
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The 2015 Trasimeno Music Festival in Italy, of which I’m the Artistic Director, is about to begin! It’s always the busiest time of year. That’s why I haven’t written in so long. I’ll be performing in 6 of the 7 programmes—performing three of them twice in one day.
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My week in Tokyo is over. I’m about to leave and get on another very long flight. It was one of the biggest challenges I could give myself: my first performances ever of Brahms’ First Piano Concerto with the Japan Philharmonic in Suntory Hall; and two huge recitals on consecutive days with only one day off (to practise) after the concerto performances.
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Last week my third album of Mozart Piano Concertos for Hyperion received a JUNO award in Canada. I suppose it’s like Canada’s Grammies.
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The most exciting thing was the recording of 16 Scarlatti Sonatas for Hyperion Records. That we did in the Beethovensaal in Hannover, where I made my first Bach recordings for Hyperion over 20 years ago.
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The month of January was an incredibly busy one, but immensely rewarding. Touring North America with Anne Sofie von Otter (congratulations on her Grammy Award, just announced!) was a total delight from start to finish.
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My new Liszt CD has just been released on Hyperion! It means so much to me to have finally recorded the B minor Sonata and the Dante Sonata (not to mention the 3 Petrarch Sonnets), all of which are pieces I played when I was a teenager or in my early 20s.
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A very Happy New Year to you all! When I woke up this morning in Umbria, the hills were covered in snow! Bello! Soon I will be in Canada where the temperature is going to hit something like -26C. Winter has finally arrived!
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Hyperion’s distributor in Canada, Harmonia Mundi CA, has opened an online store for all my CD recordings. Orders are processed right away, and shipping costs are free.
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If you would like a personally autographed CD for a Christmas present to yourself or somebody else, just visit the “Shop” in the menu and you will see what is available. The last day for an autograph in 2014 is December 16th!
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