Friday Night Live with Viv McLean – Friday 4th October 2019 

Repertoire to include; Beethoven – ‘Moonlight’  Sonata in C Sharp Minor Op. 27 No. 1 and Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue

A Welcome Note from the Music Director at Royal Porcelain Works; Keith Slade:

A huge hello and welcome to the very first season of the Performing Arts at the Royal Porcelain Works. Music has such a wide and varied outreach and here at the Royal Porcelain Works we will seize your imagination with soloists and groups of International and local repute. Our first season promises to be an epic one!

There are concerts throughout the season that will whet the appetite no matter your musical taste, and with the kaleidoscope of different genres and artistes performing, you are certainly in for a treat.

I would like to welcome all ages to our concerts, but particularly young people and individuals who might never have dipped their toes into the Concert arena. I look forward to having the pleasure of your company throughout the series, and hope that your faith will be rewarded by a musical experience that will stay with you forever.

Viv’s Set for Friday Night LIVE

Beethoven – Sonata in C Sharp Minor Op. 27 No. 1 “Moonlight”

Chopin – Nocturne in E Flat Op. 9 No. 2
Nocturne in C Sharp Minor Op. Post.
Scherzo No. 2 in B Flat Op. 31

interval

Chopin – Nocturne in G Minor Op. 37 No. 1
Nocturne in E Minor Op. 72 No. 1
Polonaise A Flat Op. 53

Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue

A bit about the artist…

Viv McLean won First Prize at the 2002 Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona and has performed in all the major venues in the UK, as well as throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA. He has performed concertos with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, Orchestra of the Swan and the Northern Chamber Orchestra under the baton of such conductors as Daniel Harding, Wayne Marshall, Christopher Warren-Green, Owain Arwell Hughes, Carl Davis, Barry Wordsworth and Marvin Hamlisch.

Viv studied from an early age with Ruth Nye and, after attending Chetham’s School of Music, he went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Hamish Milne. At the Academy he held the Hodgson Fellowship and was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in 2005. He made his Wigmore Hall recital debut through winning the Friends of the Royal Academy Wigmore Award. Whilst studying at the Academy, he was the piano winner at the Royal Overseas-League Music Competition and also won the NFMS Young Artists Competition.

Viv plays regularly with the Adderbury Ensemble and has also collaborated with groups such as the Leopold String Trio, Ensemble 360, the Ysaye Quartet, the Sacconi String Quartet, members of the Elias, Allegri and Tippett Quartets as well as artists such as Natalie Clein, Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power and Guy Johnston.

He has performed at numerous festivals including the Cheltenham International Festival, Buxton Festival, Music in the Round Festival and Harrogate International Festival in the UK, the International Beethoven Festival, the Mecklenburg Festival and the Kultur Kreis Festival in Germany, the Festival International de Musique Classique d’Aigues-Mortes, the Melle Festival and Festival de Saintes in France, the Vinterfestspill i Bergstaden in Norway and the Musik vid Kattegatt Festival in Sweden.

Viv has recorded regularly for BBC Radio 3 since making his recital debut through the BBC Radio 3 Young Artists Forum scheme and has also recorded for Classic FM, WDR Radio in Germany, Radio France, ABC Radio in Australia, NRK Radio in Norway and for the Sky Arts television channel. His commercial releases include recordings for such labels as Sony Classical Japan, Naxos, Nimbus, RPO Records, ICSM Records and Harmony & Imagination Records.

“Viv McLean revealed extraordinary originality, superb simplicity, and muscles of steel hidden by fingers of velvet. He plays with the genius one finds in those who know how to forget themselves, naturally placing themselves at the right point to meet the music, this mystery of the moment.” Le Monde (Paris).