'sparks fly through autumn glow' – Kenny Fu's International Interview Concert

Schedule

Sun, 03 Nov, 2024 at 03:00 pm

Location

@rtsspaces@sionschool – Gratwick Road Worthing BN11 4BL | Worthing, EN

“I’d go to hear Kenny Fu anywhere. I’ve heard some wonderful young pianists but he’s in the best 5 of the last 100 I’ve seen. You can tell when an audience is gripped by something. He was living the music and you felt you were under a spell of he and the music combined. The whole thing was electrifying.
“He played the Medtner Sonata Minacciosa so well it completely came alive. Not everybody can do that. I want to hear him again” – Toby Ridge.
‘In The Round’ seating
Listener Features
Surprises
Improvisation Spot
Ask A Question
Guest Interviewer
Sips ’n’ Nibbles
Free Parking
Book at seetickets.com
(or risk a sell-out and buy on the door!)
£15 Adult
£13 Adult accompanying Under-19(s)
£13 WSS / WPO / WCS*
£5 Under-36
£2 Under-19
*WSS / WPO / WCS means the Members of Worthing Symphony Society, Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra, or Worthing Choral Society
Seating is unreserved – do arrive in good time to choose where you sit. To prevent disruption, latecomers must wait until the interval.
For venue and parking details: scroll to the bottom of this.
ABOUT WHAT'S TO COME
There’ll be Beethoven, Grieg, Brahms, Medtner, Stravinsky. More? See below.
But wait . . .
An Interview Concert keeps secret some of what our artiste will perform, for your surprise, thrill and delight. You’re drawn in further to the intrigue of music with our trademark listener features. And if you’ve got one, you can throw your own burning question into the mix! At this absorbing event you’ll also meet our next Guest Interviewer.
Our own special ‘In The Round’ seating has already given people the close-up concert experience of a lifetime – with the chance to return for more! Although you have to grab the Interview Concerts when they come: we rarely have more than two a year. Do go to this event page's 'Discussion' section, to check out the audience reaction to the previous one, in March.
Be extra ready this time! Kenny Fu is going to do two things you’ve likely never witnessed at a classical concert.
1. ♫ One of world’s mightiest piano sonatas is Beethoven’s Hammerklavier. Most music lovers never have the chance to experience it, live in front of them. It’s too long for an Interview Concert but Kenny will give us one of its intoxicatingly stunning individual movements. After describing each, he’s going to invite the audience to choose which. Grip your seat, breathe deeply. It’ll be a big moment in the afternoon.
2. ♫ Kenny will create new music on the spot in a set Improvisation Spot. Just how, you’re going to discover! Rare, but this is happening in concerts by modern young performers gifted in this spontaneous and expressive freedom of invention. Most of the great composer-pianists had it. Be there, hear Kenny do it. Then tell your friends and family!
Kenny Fu has the repertoire width, the virtuosic skill and artistic insight to capture and enervate anyone with anything. He sweeps from baroque Bach, on through the great keyboard classicalists and romantics - particularly Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov – to the mould-smasher Stravinsky, provocative Prokofiev, and the mindful Medtner.
So . . . what CAN we officially reveal that he’ll perform?
Nikolai Medtner – Sonata Reminiscenza Op38 No 1 ‘From Forgotten Melodies’. This attractive Sonata will open up this composer for you. ‘He’s better than me’ was what Rachmaninov said about him.
Johannes Brahms – Intermezzi Opus 117 Nos 1 & 2; and from Six Pieces Op118, Nos 2 & 3. There’s a clue in our concert title about the wonderful deep-welling emotion in this music – and of Brahms’ ebbing time of life.
Ludwig van Beethoven – the audience’s choice of movement from Sonata No 29 Op106 ‘Hammerklavier’. Each packs its own punch of greatness.
Grieg, Stravinsky, others? Ah, these are wrapped-up surprises to be opened on the day!
Early on, Kenny Fu made the last eight in the BBC Young Musician. Later, he was the only Briton among the six exciting semi-finalists in the last Sussex International Piano Competition, at Worthing in 2018. He also made the semis in Brescia, second prize in Cyprus, and kept our attention onwards with courageous, attractive solo post-pandemic performances in Brighton and by winning the London & SE competition for the Norah Sande Award.
Now at last we all have the chance to meet Kenny interviewed – as well as in a full-length music concert.
We expect we’ll be joined by some of those Brighton lunchtime listeners wanting to discover in conversation the young man behind his bristling musical offerings. Last year he gave them Medtner’s menacing Sonata Minaccioso and now here comes a rather different one from that mid-1900s London-based Russian.
The Kenny Fu pedigree? After four years at London’s Purcell School, at 18 he was the sole pianist selected at the two Royal Academy of Music entry auditions to receive the four-year Sir Elton John Scholarship (watch out for a picture on our Facebook page). Then Kenny added his two-year Masters degree and the one-year Advanced Diploma at the Academy – who now, between his outside concert appearances, have him teaching some students in their Piano Department which Joanna MacGregor heads.

See the ‘Discussion’ section of this page for what people say it’s like being at our Interview Concerts with international artistes, and for updating info about Kenny Fu himself.
Follow 'The International Interview Concerts' Facebook page and get your information updates and build-up about this event from the timeline and this event page 'Discussion' section.
Email [email protected] to join the news emailing list
Social media www.facebook.com/TheInterviewConcerts

VENUE INFO
@rtsspaces@sionschool
FREE SUNDAY PARKING – on-site and in neighbouring streets
A combined total of 42 free spaces on-site at Sion Senior School on Gratwicke Road BN11 4BL and Sion Junior School on Westbrooke BN11 1RE
Both streets are one-way north-south
Both schools are at the north end
Nearest public car park: Buckingham Road BN11 1TH
THE CONCERT SPACE is in the Senior School
DOORS 2.30pm for 3pm show
SEATING is unallocated
Pre-concert & interval Sips & Nibbles available

Where is it happening?

@rtsspaces@sionschool – Gratwick Road Worthing BN11 4BL, 68 Gratwicke Road, Worthing, BN11 4BJ, United Kingdom,Worthing, West Sussex

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Host or Publisher The International Interview Concerts

Tags: