Canadian-born classical pianist Anastasia Rizikov is bringing a program she’s calling Continuum to Toronto’s Trinity-St. Paul’s centre on January 10. The live performance is subtitled “Not a Piano Recital — a continuum of human emotion” and incorporates music from Bach to Silvestrov and Fasil Say.
Born in Toronto to Ukrainian dad and mom, Anastasia has made her house in Paris, France, for a number of years.
We caught up together with her to speak in regards to the upcoming Toronto live performance and extra.
Anastasia Rizikov
Anastasia Rizikov was born in Toronto, and started finding out music on the age of 5 on the Nadia Music Academy. She received a string of high prizes at native music competitions within the GTA, together with the Markham Music Pageant, Yips Music Pageant, and North York Music Pageant, amongst a number of others.
Anastasia additionally received first prize at each the Canadian Music Competitors (CMC) and the Canadian Chopin Competitors. The latter led to a gala efficiency at Koerner Corridor. The Glenn Gould Basis awarded a C1X Yamaha child grand piano to the “excellent younger pianist Anastasia Rizikov. Ms. Rizikov has the piano on an indefinite loan-basis to assist in her creative and profession improvement” in December 2012, on the event of Glenn Gould’s eightieth Anniversary Yr and his GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award. That yr, she was additionally awarded the 2013 Debut Atlantic live performance tour.
Extra prize wins would comply with, together with third Prizes at sixth Tbilisi Worldwide Piano Competitors and 63rd Maria Canals Worldwide Music Competitors, together with particular prizes “For the very best international performer of a Georgian Composer’s work” (Tbilisi, Georgia, 2017), “Particular Prize to the youngest semi-finalist”, “Particular Prize to the very best efficiency of Isaac Albeniz’s music’, and “Particular Prize to the very best efficiency of Frederic Mompou’s music”, (Barcelona, Spain, 2017).
She went on to proceed her research on the École Normale de Musique de Paris in France, the place she earned her Diplôme Supérieur de Concertiste. Anastasia furthered her research with grasp courses with a spread of outstanding pianists, together with Sergei Babayan, Vladimir Feltsman, Awadagin Pratt, Arie Vardi, Robert Levin, Ferenc Rados, Anatoly Ryabov, and Oxana Yablonskaya. She has additionally labored with András Schiff, Emanuel Ax, Menahem Pressler, Gabor Takács-Nagy, and Olga Kern.
Anastasia has carried out with orchestras throughout North America and past, together with the Northwest Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Plymouth Symphony Orchestra (Michigan Philharmonic), Toronto Sinfonietta, Worldwide Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Baleares ‘Ciudad de Palma’, Nationwide Academy Orchestra of Canada, Sinfonia Toronto, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Michigan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra London Canada, Symphony Nova Scotia, Northumberland Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Laval, and the Nationwide Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, amongst others.
Anastasia Rizikov performs Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in E minor, BWV 914 reside in January 2024 by Arpeggio Movies at L’eclaireur Herold in Paris, France:
Anastasia Rizikov: The Interview
“I moved to Europe once I was 18. It’s been nearly ten years that I’ve been dwelling in Paris,” Anastasia says. “I do contemplate myself Parisian at this level.”
Having begun her profession in Toronto, she’s observed variations between the audiences she encounters now that her music apply is predicated in Europe.
“I really feel just like the European audiences normally have a broader style when it comes to the form of classical music that they wish to take heed to,” she says.
The Program
She’s rigorously chosen the items to incorporate in her Toronto live performance. They’re:
- J.S. Bach: Partita in C Minor BWV 826
- F. Schubert / F. Liszt — Lieder: Gretchen am Spinnrade & Erlkönig
- V. Silvestrov / A. Rizikov: Farewell, O World, Farewell, O Earth
- G. Mahler / A. Rizikov: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
- E. Block / A. Rizikov: From Jewish Life
- F. Say: Black Earth
- I. Shamo-Hutsul: Watercolours
- M. Skoryk / A. Rizikov: Carpathian Rhapsody
The works have been chosen with objective.
“There’s undoubtedly a really broad, however on the similar time private, journey that’s occurring,” Anastasia says. “Every composer and every work represents a vital level both in my private life, or my upbringing, my cultural background,” she explains.
Alongside together with her Ukrainian heritage, her household has Jewish roots, she explains.
“However then there’s additionally Bach on this system,” she says. “Bach has all the time, all the time been a vital, a key position in my repertoire, in my research. It was essential to incorporate him in this system.”
The title of her recital, Continuum, frames this system as a form of journey.
“I current it as a musical journey that continues on kind the seventeenth century as much as the current time.”
From its starting with Bach, the journey continues with the Schubert/Liszt Lieder. It additionally remembers pupil days and her earlier music research, however she needed to veer away from the a program stuffed with Chopin research and items like Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody, as soon as staples within the live performance scene.
“These sorts of packages are merely uninteresting for the general public” she says. Trendy audiences are on the lookout for greater than showmanship. “The viewers must really feel reference to the artist,” she explains. “Once you play music that’s private to your self, it interprets to the viewers. They really feel it extra intensely.”
This system is one she’s simply put collectively. “It’s a really new program, however in my head it really works very effectively.”
On her solution to a gathering in the course of the interview, she factors out that she’s passing by the workplaces of Warner Music France as she talks. Rizikov has recorded albums with the Warner Classics label.
“The Bach and the Schubert I’ve performed for a very long time, however the remainder of this system has been curated spontaneously,” she explains.
Anastasia Rizikov performs Lyapunov’s Etude Transcendante No. 10, Op. 11 “Lezghinka” in Salle Colonne in Paris, August 2023:
Making Preparations
About half of this system consists of works that she’s arranging for piano herself, together with music by Silvestrov, Mahler, Block, and Skyork.
“The rationale I made a decision to do lots of preparations, on the one hand, I’m so lucky to be a pianist, as a result of right here isn’t any repertoire that I can’t [do],” she explains. However, she needed to develop on the concept of performing repertoire that was particularly written for the piano.
Valentin Silvestrov’s Farewell, O World, Farewell, O Earth is the fourth motion from his 1999 work Requiem for Larissa, a tribute to his late spouse. It was a chunk Larissa needed to develop on pianistically, though it’s written as a choral work.
“Each time I hear it, and each time I play it, I’ve chills taking place my backbone,” she says.
Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 has a equally emotional influence. “There’s a cause why Leonard Bernstein was buried with the fifth Symphony of Mahler,” Rizikov says. “It’s unimaginable music.”
Arranging symphonic and choral works for piano requires an understanding of the instrument.
“We’ve got to on one hand to grasp he limits of the piano as a percussive instrument,” she explains. “However, I occur to have lots of expertise enjoying with orchestras, but in addition enjoying with choral ensembles, and conducting,” she provides.
The Block and Skoryk works have been among the many most difficult to rearrange. “My objective in arranging these items is to show one thing from 2D to 3D.,” Anastasia provides.
“Certainly, it’s not a very simple process. The piano can not sing phrases, however the music, within the case of this Silvestrov piece, the music is so hauntingly stunning that I really feel just like the phrases aren’t even essential,” she says.
“Silvestrov is ready to inform a really intestine wrenching story. It’s a tune of any person who’s leaving this earth, and all people is saying their goodbyes.”
The piece additionally hyperlinks to her Ukrainian heritage. “Music is essential to play today from a political standpoint as effectively,” Rizikov begins. “It’s essential to carry to mild Ukrainian music.”
It’s one thing she’s been emphasizing in her repertoire for a while. “I’ve all the time been one to play lots of Jap European music, together with Russian music,” she says. “I really feel prefer it’s onerous to play Russian music today. It doesn’t sit proper with me.”
A part of her objective can also be to play the work of comparatively unknown composers.
“I’m fairly certain that composers like Shamo, for instance, [is someone] that individuals haven’t heard of.” She factors out that Shamo is thought largely for a pop tune he wrote, “Kyieve Mii” (My Kyiv). His essential oeuvre, nevertheless, lies within the classical realm.
“Watercolours I believe is an excellent work,” she says, mentioning the affect of Debussy. “[There’s] nothing fairly prefer it. There’s some colors on this music that I don’t assume I’ve ever heard of.”
It results in Skoryk’s piece, which contains musical idioms of the Carpathian mountains. She factors out additionally that the Hutsul scale (the Hutsuls being an East Slavic ethnic group of the Carpathian highlands), also referred to as the Ukrainian Dorian scale, additionally overlaps with Jewish music. “They’ve a lot in widespread.”
She is aware of Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say personally, having recorded his Four Cities (Dört Şehir), Op. 41, with cellist Lisa Strauss on the Warner label in 2024. It was a chunk she’d carried out a number of instances reside.
“This can be a very extraordinary particular person who likes to mix musical textures,” she says of Say. The work in her live performance program, Black Earth, includes enjoying from contained in the piano, making a sound just like the Turkish duduk, a double-reeded woodwind instrument.
A Journey In Live performance
Rizikov is aiming to supply her viewers a mixture in the case of live performance experiences.
“I believe it’s a live performance with a reasonably wholesome mixture of items which might be very virtuosic, but in addition, alternatively, are very non secular, are very deep and philosophical,” she says.
“There’s a little bit of every part on this live performance.”
The live performance takes place January 10 at Jeanne Lamon Corridor within the Trinity-St Paul’s centre.
- Discover live performance particulars and tickets [HERE].
Are you trying to promote an event? Have a news tip? Have to know the very best events occurring this weekend? Ship us a note.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the every day arts information straight to your inbox.
Join the Ludwig Van Toronto e-Blast! — native classical music and opera information straight to your inbox HERE.
Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
