International Piano Series

“The International Piano Series goes from strength to strength, with this debut from Behzod Abduraimov. His recital celebrated his natural, abundant musicianship, which made his performance of Schubert’s radiant A major Piano Sonata such a pleasure…” (Peter Reed, The Classical Source, December 2012)

"Having praised this 22-year-old Uzbek [Behzod Abduraimov] to the skies after his Wigmore debut, all I can say is that his playing has now passed beyond all the conventional superlatives. His ‘Appassionata’ was a miracle of elegantly-controlled power, his Schubert was exquisite, and his Liszt electrifying. His magically singing touch serves a refined sense of architecture, but what drove the Southbank audience wild was his winning amalgam of fire and poetry.” (Michael Church, The Independent, December 2012)

“It’s usually taken as axiomatic that while pianists reach their technical peak at twenty, they need much longer to hone their artistry, and one of the merits of the Southbank’s current International Piano Series is that it’s allowing us to test this view against reality. This week’s thoroughbred was Daniil Trifonov, a 21-year-old Russian who won the latest Tchaikovsky competition, and who must be the only pianist alive whose sound has driven the great Martha Argerich – plus those of us who heard his Wigmore debut, and his Verbier performance this year - to bemused adulation.” (Michael Church, The Independent, December 2012)

“At the Southbank, for the third time already this year following Daniel Barenboim and Krystian Zimerman, another great pianist was causing queues, extra seating on stage and standing ovations. Maurizio Pollini's Chopin recital was always going to be an "event", and so it proved.” (The Observer, March 2010)

“On the evening of Chopin’s second possible birth-day, HarrisonParrott and Southbank Centre pulled off another coup (the first was to engage Krystian Zimerman the week before for this composer’s ‘other’ potential day of arrival) by asking Maurizio Pollini to distil his particular brand of Chopin interpretation.” (Classical Source, March 2010)

“The sonata's scherzo was ripplingly fluent, the funeral march full of magical colours and gradations, its transition to the enigmatic finale perfectly stage-managed. An astounding account of the great B flat Scherzo Op 31 then followed.” (The Guardian, February 2010)