Nikolai Demidenko is a titan of the keyboard, a pianist for whom the outer limits of virtuosity hold no fears.

For this Russian, the Fazioli piano is a source of endless colours; his performance of Bach’s Italian Concerto in San Francisco a few months ago, inspired hushed admiration from at least one critic.

Here was a man who could move “from dense, organ-inspired sonorities to a harpsichordlike crispness and back. His fortissimo, never harsh, made the hall reverberate the way a great Baroque organ makes the air inside a cathedral — and indeed a listener's whole essence — quiver.”

Hamilton will have an opportunity to quiver with pleasure when the pianist brings this very programme to the Gallagher Concert Chamber on Friday 31st August in the University Music Department’s Celebrity Showcase.

Demidenko’s Hamilton recital will display both the many facets of the pianist’s prodigious artistry, allowing him to sparkle in the rippling textures of Bach’s Italian Concerto and then put his full tonal weight behind Liszt’s virtuoso transcriptions of the German composer’s Fantasy and Fugue in B minor and a set of variations on a theme from Bach’s Cantata Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen.

With Schubert’s D major Sonata we can expect the full range of Demidenko’s technique to be on show, from the surging Allegro through to its capricious closing Rondo.

This will truly be an evening to remember and the highlight of Waikato's musical year.

Friday 31st August 7.30pm
Gallagher Concert Chamber
WEL Academy of Performing Arts
$45 adults $30 students
Tickets available from www.waikato.ac.nz/academy or www.ticketdirect.co.nz or phone 0800 383 5200