Pianist Helene Mercier performed Manuel de Falla with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra

Montreal born international acclaimed pianist Helene Mercier did a wonderful performance of Manuel de Falla’s Nights in The Gardens of Spain with the MSO.

She appeared very pretty on stage in a black and white tuxedo and impressed audiences with her insurance and stability. Manuel de Falla composed his piano and orchestra work The Gardens of Spain in his pastime in Paris, at the beginning like a piano nocturne forms and after he orchestrated in Spain. It is notable that in Paris he didn’t get inspired by the city, and was inspired from his homeland memories of Spain. The work is kind of melodious and easy listening without mach complications in the simple orchestration. As usual musicians of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra played fantastically the scores. The program of the concert started with the modern inaccessible work Abgrund of the French composer Philippe Manoury. As the most of those works sounded like an ugly sound. Manoury composed this kind of works by strongly influenced from Boulez and Stockhausen. At the second part of the program maestro of the concert David Robert Coleman did a very energetic and sometimes aggressive interpretation of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4, in F Minor. I mach preferred Coleman’s version of this old fashioned Russian work. Not so melodious like other works of Tchaikovsky the Symphony No 4 has the full color of strings, and some brass section, in a folk Russian tunes.

Hélène Mercier lives in Paris, and participates frequently in prestigious festivals in France. In Europe and in North America, she regularly performs as soloist and chamber music player. She is also invited to play with several different European and North American orchestras: amongst others, at the Brescia-Bergamo International Festival, in Minneapolis and St. Paul with the Minnesota Orchestra, in Paris, under the direction of Zubin Mehta with the Israël Philharmonic Orchestra and under the direction of Kurt Masur at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Performances also include the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Spivakov, the orchestras of Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, the Orchestre de Paris, under the direction of Semyon Bychkov, performing Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Natalia Gutman and Salvatore Accardo, and a debut performance with the New Japan Philharmonic under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. Hélène Mercier is “Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”.

Conductor David Robert Coleman was born into an English-German family in London. Engagements had as an assistant-conductor to Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle and Hans Zender. From 2006-2009 David Robert Coleman was appointed by Maestro Kent Nagano as personal assistant and associate conductor at the Bavarian State Opera Munich. In this capacity he conducted a series of ballet productions, amongst others, Kenneth MacMillan's legendary choreography of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the Bavarian State Orchestra. Over the last ten years David Robert Coleman has forged a strong career as a guest-conductor with orchestras such as the OSM, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, Lausanne Sinfonietta, Southwest German Radio Orchestra, Youth Orchestra of the Americas and Ensemble Modern Frankfurt. Since 2010, he is involved in a project with Naxos to record three CDs of Latin American Symphonic music with the National Symphony of Costa Rica. In May 2010 David Robert Coleman began a music-directorship of the Munich Arts Ensemble in collaboration with the Munich music academy and the Bavarian radio orchestra.

(Pictures: Panayoti Karousos with pianist Hélène Mercier, the MSO on stage of Place des Arts, and conductor David Robert Coleman with composer Panayoti Karousos)