Clélia Iruzun: Piano Recital

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Brazilian concert pianist Clélia Iruzun has her Americas Society debut with music from the Americas and Europe, including solo works by Villa-Lobos, Lecuona, Chopin, Mignone, and Gottschalk. 

Program

About the artist

London-based pianist Clélia Iruzun's childhood was spent in the rich cultural atmosphere of Rio de Janeiro, where she began playing the piano at the age of four, winning her first competition at seven, and making her orchestral debut playing Grieg’s Piano Concerto at 15. At 17, Iruzun won a scholarship to study in London with Maria Curcio and Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music, where she graduated with a recital diploma. She also studied with Noretta Conci and Mercês de Silva Telles. Her mentors have included Fou Ts’Ong, Stephen Kovacevich, and her Brazilian compatriots Jacques Klein and Nelson Freire. From the early years of her career, her technique caught the attention of Francisco Mignone and Marlos Nobre. Iruzun has given recitals and concerto performances throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Her tours in China have featured numerous sold-out performances, including recitals in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Beijing. She has also toured with the Coull Quartet in China and Brazil and recently performed with them at the Southbank Centre (UK) and in the quartet series at Warwick University.

She has premiered several Brazilian works, including Henrique Oswald's Piano Quintet; Villa-Lobos's Octet; João Guilherme Ripper's Piano Sonata; Marlos Nobre's Desafio for piano and guitar and Sonata breve at Southbank and Wigmore Hall; and Piano Concertos such as the Mignone’s Fantasia No.3 (in Norway with the Kristiansand Orchestra; London with Lontano Ensemble; Poland with the Poznan Philharmonic). In her native country, she has premiered works by British composers such as York Bowen and Arnold Bax, and she recently appeared at the Festival de Inverno Campos do Jordão. On disc, Iruzun has championed the music of South American composers: Villa-Lobos Piano Music (1992, reissued by Meridian Records in 2005); Latin American Dances (1998, Intim Musik); The Waltz Album (2002, Intim Musik); Brazilian Mosaic, which included the world premiere recording of Nobre’s Concertante do Imaginario (2003, Lorelt); The Music of Lecuona (2005, Lorelt); and Francisco Mignone-Piano Music (2007, Lorelt). Iruzun founded the festival “Brazil Three Centuries of Music” with the Coull Quartet.