French piano star Francois Chaplin to perform in Tashkent

May 7, 2011

Prominent French pianist Francois Chaplin will perform on May 13-14 in the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan in Tashkent. The maestro’s two-day performance will include a concert with the Symphonic Orchestra of Uzbekistan on May 13 and a recital the following day. The concerts have been organized by the French Institute, the Embassy of France and the Fund Forum.

Born in Paris into a family of painters, he spent weekends at Barbizon, a commune in north-central France, and quickly grasped the link between music and the colors of nature. He listened to his mother playing, and began piano lessons himself at the age of eight. A famous French conductor Nadia Boulanger noticed his exceptional skills and prophesied he would attain a glittering career.

François Chaplin is a professor at the Conservatoire de Rayonnement Régional in Versailles and has taught master classes in many countries across the world. He was a prizewinner at the Senigallia International Competition, was awarded the Mozart Prize and Robert Casadesus Prize at the Cleveland International Competition in 1989, and graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris with a Premier Prix as a top student in his discipline in 1987. He studied under piano virtuosos Jean-Claude Pennetier and Ventsislav Yankoff.

Francois Chaplin performs regularly with the Talich, Psophos, Debussy, and Élysée quartets, the cellists Francois Salque and Emmanuelle Bertrand, the pianists Cédric Tiberghien and Marie-Josèphe Jude, the Orchestre National de Lille, the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, and is a frequent guest at such festivals as La Roque d'Anthéron, the Rencontres de Nohant, the Flâneries Musicales de Reims, Piano en Valois, and the Festival Chopin de Bagatelle.

His complete recording of the piano works by Claude Debussy was unanimously praised by the critics (Diapason d'Or, ffff Télérama, BBC Music Magazine Award). His discography also includes music by Chopin, Schumann, Poulenc, C. P. E. Bach, and Mozart.

Critics have noted the pianist’s finesse and freedom of thought, which have enabled him to come up with new keys to the performance of classical repertoire while his precocious taste for tone color and modal sound help him to convey to the listener the mood of a particular piece’s composer.

Free admission.