Aaron Pilsan - Elf Humoresken - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Aaron Rosand - Plays Arensky/Tchaikovsky/Mend [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/01/1999

Aaron Tan, the 2018 First Prize Winner in the American Guild of Organists' National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, performs a varied program of organ works and transcriptions on the Rieger organ of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. Aaron's primary musical tutelage has been with John Tuttle, David Palmer, and Joel Hastings. His musical upbringing started on the piano and later on the violin. He received his Associate (ARCT) diploma in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada at the age of twelve and went on to earn his Licentiate (LTCL) and Fellowship (FTCL) diplomas in Piano Performance from Trinity College of Music, London, England, at 13 and 15 years of age, respectively. When he was 18, he also completed his ARCT diploma in Violin Performance.

Aaron Pilsan is only twenty-five years old, but he already has a busy career to his credit, with a solo album devoted to Beethoven and Schubert - very well received by the critics - and another of duo repertory with the cellist Kian Soltani. A student of Lars Vogt, he has also received guidance from András Schiff - Bach has always been at the center of their work together. The young Austrian pianist has been fascinated since childhood by The Well-Tempered Clavier, 'that musical journey on which Bach embarks with us in Book One from the seemingly simple and joyful triad of the famous Prelude in C major to the final fugue, of a complexity almost worthy of Schoenberg, on a subject that already includes the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale... Ever since I became interested in Bach's music, I have never ceased to ask myself how to make the modern grand piano - which has a rich fundamental sound but a reduced volume of harmonics compared to the harpsichord - produce an essentially Inchwell-temperedInch impression on the listener... But for me it was not a question of instrumental history, but of interpretation.'