Geoffrey Saba (born 1946) is an Australian classical pianist of Lebanese descent, based in London.
Saba was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, [1] where his parents established a well-known haberdashery store. He attended Toowoomba Grammar School. He was awarded the University of Queensland Music Scholarship for 1963, and chose to take it at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. [2]
After graduating, he moved to London in the late 1960s, and has resided there ever since. He has worked with Stefan Askenase and Vlado Perlemuter.
He was one of the competitors awarded a bronze medal at the First Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 1974. [3]
He tours in North America, Europe, the Middle East, India, Japan, South East Asia and Australia.
In its facsimile edition of Franz Schubert's C major Sonata, Relique, D.840, the International Franz Schubert Institute, Vienna, published Saba's essay on a performer's approach to playing Schubert's unfinished piano sonatas. [4]
Alfred Brendel is an Austrian classical pianist, poet, author, composer, and lecturer who is noted for his performances of Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven.
Evgeny Igorevich Kissin is a Russian-born concert pianist and composer. He became a British citizen in 2002 and an Israeli citizen in 2013. He first came to international fame as a child prodigy. He has a wide repertoire and is especially known for his interpretations of the works of the Romantic era, particularly those of Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Modest Mussorgsky and Ludwig van Beethoven. He is commonly viewed as a great successor of the Russian piano school because of the depth, lyricism and poetic quality of his interpretations.
Murray David Perahia is an American pianist and conductor. He is widely considered one of the greatest living pianists. He was the first North American pianist to win the Leeds International Piano Competition, in 1972. Known as a leading interpreter of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, among other composers, Perahia has won numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards from a total of 18 nominations, and 9 Gramophone Awards in addition to its first and only "Piano Award".
Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759, commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony, is a musical composition that Schubert started in 1822 but left with only two movements—though he lived for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages orchestrated, also survives.
Richard Goode is an American classical pianist who is especially known for his interpretations of Mozart and Beethoven.
Nikolai Demidenko is a Russian-born classical pianist.
Harry Lancelot Dossor was a British-born classical music concert pianist and teacher who emigrated to Australia in May 1953.
Franz Schubert wrote his Sonata in C major for piano four-hands, D 812, in June 1824 during his second stay at the Esterházy estate in Zseliz. The extended work, in four movements, has a performance time of around 40 to 45 minutes. It was published as Grand Duo, Op. 140, in 1837, nine years after the composer's death.
Radu Lupu was a Romanian pianist. He was widely recognized as one of the greatest pianists of his time.
Llŷr Williams is a Welsh concert pianist.
Lars Vogt was a German classical pianist, conductor and academic teacher. Noted by The New York Times for his interpretations of Brahms, Vogt performed as a soloist with major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic. He was the music director of the Orchestre de chambre de Paris at the time of his death and also served as the music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia. He ran a festival of chamber music, Spannungen, from 1998, and succeeded his teacher Karl-Heinz Kämmerling as professor of piano at the Musikhochschule Hannover.
Paul Lewis is an English classical pianist.
Geoffrey Penwill Parsons AO OBE was an Australian pianist, most particularly notable as an accompanist to singers and instrumentalists. After the retirement of Gerald Moore, he was generally considered the world's finest and most sympathetic accompanist of lieder singers, "elevating the role of the accompanist to new heights with his musicality, authority and quiet strength of playing".
Aloys and AlfonsKontarsky were German duo-pianist brothers who were associated with a number of important world premieres of contemporary works. They had an international reputation for performing modern music for two pianists, although they also performed the standard repertoire and they sometimes played separately. They were occasionally joined by their younger brother Bernhard in performances of pieces for three pianos. After suffering a stroke in 1983, Aloys retired from performing.
Leonard Hokanson was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician.
Anna Malikova is a Russian pianist.
Michael Dussek is an English pianist specialising in chamber music and song accompaniment.
Jayson Lloyd Gillham is a British-Australian classical pianist, based in London. In 2014, Gillham was the winner of the 2014 Montreal International Musical Competition, which brought him to international attention. His outstanding performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 was described in the Huffington Post as being played 'with such streamlined patrician elegance that he took home First Prize and a string of engagements...' The renowned British conductor Sir Mark Elder said Gillham 'plays Beethoven with a sort of ‘glow’'. In May 2015, Gillham signed a three-album deal with ABC Classics.
Philippe Cassard is a French classical pianist.
Donald Isler is an American classical pianist and music educator based in Westchester County near New York.