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Paris-based pianist Ivan Ilic premieres new Piano Sonata
Added: (Wed Oct 04 2006)
Ivan Ilic, an American pianist based in Paris, will premiere an exciting new work written for him by John L. King.
Ilic commissioned King’s "Piano Sonata" in June and will premiere the piece on Wednesday, October 18th at 8pm. The concert will be held at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness Scotland; the Inverness Chamber Music Society is sponsoring the event.
Ilic and King met during their undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley, where they both studied mathematics and music. They also both studied improvisation with the world-renowned saxophone player Steve Coleman before graduating in 2001 and moving abroad. King recalls: “Coleman’s expectations for a ’serious’ musician profoundly shook me up.”
King has since finished graduate studies in music composition from the University of Manchester, while Ilic has pursued an active international career after graduating from the Conservatoire in Paris. The two California natives, although still in their twenties, are making their mark on the European classical music scene. Ilic remarks: "This is the first of several projects we have in mind."
Ilic commissioned the piece from King because he feels that much of the modern repertoire for piano is badly written. "There is a great wealth of piano music written before World War Two, but most of the pieces written since then are ugly and tedious. Composers today perform very rarely and it shows in the music: it’s often unecessarily awkward."
King, an accomplished jazz pianist himself, has taken "special care" with his new Sonata. "I want my music to be liked by performers and audiences alike. It’s ridiculous that some composers write music knowing that they’ll hear it performed only once or twice. My generation of composers is turning that around."