Place:National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The Taiwan leg of world-renowned pianist Rueibin Chen's (陳瑞斌) 2013 World Tour, titled "Listen: Total Rachmaninoff,” is slated for Sept. 10 at the National Concert Hall in Taipei.
The tour "Total Rachmaninoff” is named after Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and is held in honor of the 140th anniversary of his birth.
To help introduce classic music lovers to the iconic Russian composer, Chen has selected Rachmaninoff's 'Nocturnes,' 'Prelude in D Major, Op. 23 No. 4' and 'Etude-Tableau in D major Op. 39 No. 9,' along with the composer's piano transcriptions of works by Bach, Schubert, Tchaikovsky and other musical luminaries.
'Rachmaninoff was not only a great composer, but an excellent arranger,' said the 46-year-old pianist, who moved from Taiwan to Austria at the age of 13 to study music, adding that Rachmaninoff's emotionally charged music helped put him at ease during his lonely days abroad.
'His music has the power to calm me. There was a time when I didn't see my family for 10 years, and I just put all of those emotions into playing his music,' Chen explainedin reference to his period of study under the late revered Russian pianist Lazar Berman. He was Berman's sole pupil from Asia.
Chen, who began to play the piano since the age of five under his father's tutelage, was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the Republic of China in 2004 and was invited to performat the opening ceremony of Shanghai's World Expo in 2010. Most notably, he has been hailed as "the fifth generation successor of Beethoven's heritage.”
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