CBC Radio microphones will be on hand to record two popular classical soloists, performing here as a duo for the first time in the Coast Recital Society's Sunday afternoon concert at the Raven's Cry Theatre in Sechelt.
Pianist Libby Yu and cellist Yegor Dyachkov are making return visits to the Sunshine Coast, but this will be their début as a recital duo. Their concert will be recorded for broadcast on Westcoast Performance, noon, Easter Sunday, March 27, on CBC Radio Two (92.1 FM).
Dyachkov was born in Moscow in 1974 and later emigrated to Canada, where he became an impressive recitalist, orchestral soloist and chamber musician. He has an active international touring schedule and in Canada has performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Radio Orchestra and I Musici de Montreal. In 2000, he received the Artist of the Year award from the CBC and the Toronto Women's Musical Club. Vancouver pianist Yu's performance schedule takes her to the stages of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Recital Hall, the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw and the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver.
The first-prize winner of the 27th CBC Radio National Competition for Young Performers, Yu also was awarded a Diploma of Honour at the 13th International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition in 1995. Her 2004 world première performance of a new work by Canadian composer Chris Paul Harman with the CBC Radio Orchestra was broadcast live to European Broadcasting Union stations. Ever popular with Sunshine Coast audiences, Yu's invaluable advice assisted the Coast Recital Society in selecting its concert grand piano.
Dyachkov teaches in the Faculty of Music at McGill University in Montreal and at the Domaine Forget Festival near Quebec City. While in Sechelt, as part of the Coast Recital Society's Artists in the Community program, he will perform for Sunshine Coast high school students, Monday, March 14, at Chatelech Secondary School in Sechelt. Concert attendance is open to all high school students on the Coast. Music for unaccompanied cello, from the Baroque period to the present, will be featured, and there will be a question and answer period.
At Sunday's concert, Dyachkov and Yu will perform works for piano and cello by Claude Debussy (Sonata for cello and piano), Alexina Louis (Bringing the Tiger Down from the Mountain II) and Johannes Brahms (Sonata opus 38, no. 1 in e minor). Dyachkov will play Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suite no. 2 in d minor, while Yu's solo offerings will be Frédéric Chopin's Ballade, opus 23, no. 1 in g minor and Etudes, opus 10, numbers 9 and 12.
Single tickets are available; contact Mary Lea Bell at 604-886-8330.
