Episode 2: Nocturnes
October 9
Garrick Ohlsson and Ben Laude explore Chopin’s signature mood pieces, the Nocturnes.
Featuring
Dina Yoffe
2nd Prize, 1975 International Chopin Competition
Jury, 2025 US National Chopin Competition
A prize-winner of the Chopin Competition in Poland and the Schumann Competition in Germany, Dina Yoffe has performed around the world, with such outstanding orchestras and conductors as the Israel Symphony Orchestra and Zubin Mehta, NHK Orchestra and Neville Marriner, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra with Valery Gergiev and Dmitry Kitaenko, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra with James De Priest, Kremerata Baltica and Gidon Kremer, Moscow Soloists with Yuri Bashmet and Sinfonia Varsovia under the baton of Jacek Kaspszyk. She has appeared many times in the ‘Chopin and his Europe’ festival. She has also recorded for the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, including on a period Pleyel piano and for two pianos and four hands with Daniel Vaiman.
John O’Conor on John Field’s influence on Chopin
The Irish pianist John O'Conor has been gathering wonderful reviews for his masterly playing for over forty years. Having studied in his native Dublin, in Vienna with Dieter Weber and being tutored by the legendary Wilhelm Kempff his unanimous 1st Prize at the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna in 1973 opened the door to a career that has brought him all around the world. A Steinway Artist, he is Chair of the Piano Division at Shenandoah University in Virginia, Professor of Piano at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Distinguished Visiting Artist at the TU Dublin Conservatoire of Music and Visiting Professor at Showa University in Japan.
Critic’s corner
Jed Distler on Great Recordings of Chopin’s Nocturnes
Jed Distler is a composer, pianist, music writer, and arts presenter based in New York. He is the official Gramophone blogger for the International Chopin Competition.