Été musical de Barachois

he studied with the distinguished French pianist Michel Béroff. He then completed a four-year master’s course at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Joan Havill, receiving the Concert Recital Diploma (Premier Prix). For further studies with Jean Saulnier the young Ukranian settled over to Canada in 2007, where he had already won the Montréal International Musical Competition in 2004. In addition to his Montréal triumph in 2004, his competition achievements include First Prize in the Dudley (2000) and Épinal (2004) International Piano Competitions, Second Prizes at the Gina Bachauer Competition (2010) and the Cincinnati World Piano Competition (2012) and Third Prizes at the Long-Thibaud (2001), the Hamamatsu (2003) and the Tromsö Top of the World (2009) competitions. In May 2014 Serhiy Salov won the Richard Lupien Improvisation Prize, which has been awarded for the first time by the Montreal International Musical Competition.

With recital programmes that extend from Johann Sebastian Bach through the Classical, Romantic and early Modernist composers to György Ligeti, the pianist recently also dedicates himself to contemporary pieces. His concerto repertoire ranges from the great works of the
19th and 20th centuries to lesser-known Soviet composers. Serhiy Salov has made solo appearances in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and Ukraine, and has played with the Berlin Symphony, the Hallé Orchestra, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Radio France, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Salt Lake City Symphony and the Tokyo Symphony, with conductors including Lawrence Foster, Jacques Lacombe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Leonard Slatkin. In spring 2013 he toured South America playing Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra (direction: Kent Nagano). In 2013 he interpreted Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Stéphane Tétreault, Maxim Vengerov and I Musici de Montréal. Serhiy Salov is also a keen chamber musician, partners include the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

Salov’s solo Rite of Spring is just one example of his piano transcriptions of large-scale works. His other enterprises in this area include Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Fêtes from Debussy’s Nocturnes, a version for solo piano of Poulenc's D minor concerto for two pianos and orchestra as well as scenes from the Wagner operas Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. In the current season Serhiy Salov will perform at home in Canada, but also abroad. He will give his debut with Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra and Michał Dworzyński as well as with Artur Rubinstein Philharmonie Lódz and Pawel Przytocki. Another debut will be Serhiy Salov’s performance with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins at Bedford Corn Exchange. Further concerts in the season 2014/2015 will bring him to New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and to China where he will give eight recitals at different venues.
 

The Rite of Spring was paired on CD with the world premiere recording of Hutsulian Watercolours by the Ukrainian composer Ihor Shamo (1925-1982) on Analekta in 2010, while Serhiy Salov’s previous release, Shostakovich's Circle, showcased rarely performed piano concertos by German Galynin and Galina Ustvolskaya. Both releases received the Prix Opus for “Best Classical Recording of the Year” by Conseil Québécois de la Musique.

www.serhiysalov.com