Some musical greats for everyone

The end of the week promises a recital for cello and piano in Paphos, and chamber music concerts in Nicosia and Limassol.

First up, on Friday the Technopolis 20 Cultural Centre will host Brice Catherin on the cello and Annini Tsiouti on the piano, who will perform works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Nikos Skalkottas and Galina Ustvolskaya.

Catherin studied composition with Michael Jarrel in 2006 and then stepped away from the contemporary music institutions so that he could develop into other fields, such as art performance and improvisation. These new fields of interest fed into each other and gave him the chance to perform improvised concerts. He also has never stopped composing and premiering written pieces.

Tsiouti studied piano and chamber music at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and Musicology at the Sorbonne University. After moving back to Cyprus in 2008, she has been working as a piano teacher and accompanist.

She has given concerts in Cyprus and abroad, and has also appeared in various international music festivals.

Musicians from the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra will put on a chamber music concert on Saturday in Nicosia and on Sunday in Limassol.

The Cyprus Symphony Orchestra is well known for its ongoing concerts and its effort to tempt all members of society to have a classical musical experience. This time six musicians from the orchestra will meet on stage and present two string sextets by Russian romantic composer Alexander Borodin and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

In 1860 Borodin was still studying to be a chemist when he started writing his String sextet, comprising two movements: a lively Allegro in which, as is often remarked, Borodin seems to be taking Mendelssohn on at his own game, and a pleasant Andante. Typically tuneful and rather Germanic, it ties in beautifully with Mozart’s String sextet after the Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364.

While the Austrian composer wrote the Sinfonia, his only complete surviving work in this genre, on his return from Paris and Mannheim in 1779, a Grande Sestetto Concertante after the Sinfonia by an unknown arranger was published by Sigmund Anton Steiner in 1808, with all six parts divided equally among the six players, and not presented as soloists with accompaniment: a fine example of musicianship and virtuosity.

Recital for Cello and Piano
Performance by Brice Catherina on cello and Annini Tsiouti on piano. April 8. Technopolis 20, Paphos. 8pm. €10. Tel: 70-002420

Chamber Music Concert
Performance by members of the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra. April 9. Pallas theatre, Nicosia. 5pm. €5/3. Tel: 22-463144

April 10. Papadakeion Municipal School of Music, Limassol

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