The Hunter College Music Department is honored to host a piano masterclass with prolific French pianist Yves Henry this Wednesday, October 25th at 9:00am in Lang Recital Hall. This special event is co-sponsored by the French-American Piano Society and will feature Hunter College Music Department students Sarah Dutcher, Elham Fanoos, and Mariel Mayz performing works by Ravel, Liszt, and Scriabin. This event is free and open to the public.
Pianist and composer Yves Henry was trained at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1970s-80s, where he studied with Pierre Sancan and took courses in chamber music, accompaniment and choral direction as well as classes in writing, obtaining a total of seven premiers prix by the age of 22.
The same year, after having worked with Aldo Ciccolini for three years, he won First Grand Prize at the Robert Schumann International Competition in Zwickau. He is now recognized as one of the specialists in the interpretation of Chopin and Liszt, in particular owing to his experience with instruments from the Romantic era.
Professor at the Paris Conservatory and the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional in Paris, member of the program committee of the Chopin Institute in Warsaw on the occasion of the Chopin bicentennial in 2010, and honorary member of the Japanese Piano Teachers Association, Yves Henry gives numerous recitals around the world, primarily devoted to composers of the Romantic era. He is regularly invited for master classes at universities in the United States, Japan, and China and sits on juries of important international competitions such as Monte-Carlo Piano Masters, Dvořák Piano Competition in Nelahozeves, Robert Schumann International Competition in Germany, selection of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. He also devotes himself to chamber music alongside his brother, a violinist, and various partners (Michel Portal, Karl Leister, Ivry Gitlis, Brigitte Engerer, Augustin Dumay, Gary Hoffman, soloists of the Orchestre de Paris, Michel Lethiec, the Elysées and Modigliani quartets…) and is the founder of several productions combining literature and music with actresses Marie-Christine Barrault and Brigitte Fossey.
In addition to his activities as a performer and teacher, he has composed several works inspired by texts of the Corsican poet André Giovanni (Les Chants Tyrrhéniens, Les Sentiers dérobés) along with chamber music pieces (Kaga Yusen for violin and piano, Suite Vénitienne for flute, cello and piano, Il soplo ligero for clarinet and piano). He recently composed a Nocturne for orchestra that premiered in Paris and Germany in 2014. He has also made transcriptions for concert performance of works including Paul Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Maurice Ravel’s La Valse, and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, which will be the subject of a CD release in 2015.
In January 2010, he was promoted to the rank of Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters by Frédéric Mitterrand, Minister of Culture, received the Gloria Artis award from the Polish government for his contribution to the Chopin Year in France, and was one of the personalities to be included in the 2010 Who’s Who in France. In January 2011, he succeeded Alain Duault as President of the Nohant Chopin Festival.
In the course of the 2014-15 season, he will gave concerts in Germany, Japan, Poland and the United States and was invited to participate in the selection jury of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in April 2015 as well as the jury of the Chopin Competition for Young People in Szafarnia, Poland in May 2015.
