MARIA MARCHANT
ASSEMBLY HALL, WORTHING
Sunday 19 May 2024
1:45 pm
Conductor: JOHN GIBBONS
Leader: JULIAN LEAPER
Glinka - Overture ‘Ruslan and Ludmila’
Scriabin - Reverie
Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 2
Brahms - Symphony No. 1 in C minor
Melt into summer with the limpid tones of Chopin at his most intoxicating. Sussex pianist Maria Marchant is fast becoming a firm favourite with Worthing audiences. Her infectious performances of Gershwin last season were rapturously received so her performance of Chopin’s ever-popular 2nd Piano Concerto is eagerly anticipated.
Glinka’s rousing Overture ‘Ruslan and Ludmila’ is a regular opener for Worthing Symphony Orchestra’s annual Schools Concert and is justifiably one of the most popular overtures in the repertoire.
The heady exoticism of Scriabin’s music is gaining more and more fans as people discover his unique blend of post-Chopin lyricism and sumptuous romantic harmony. He had never before composed for Orchestra and when he played his first published orchestral composition – Reverie – to the great Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg in 1898, he was thrilled at the response – ‘delightful’.
The season closes in majestic tones with Brahms’s life-affirming Symphony No. 1 - a work viewed in the19th century as Beethoven’s 10th. A fitting epitaph for a work that again takes us from darkness to light and ends in a triumphant blaze blaze of orchestral sound.
Parking at the Assembly Hall: The nearest multi-space car park, the newly reopened Civic Quarter multi-storey, is adjacent to the Hall. Further details, including other local parking options, are available on the council's website.
MARIA MARCHANT
Multi award-winning London-based Christian pianist & conductor Maria Marchant performs frequently for numerous festivals, music societies, recordings, projects and concerts at leading venues in the UK and abroad. Her performances have been featured on radio stations internationally including BBC Radio 3 ‘Breakfast’, ‘In Tune’ and ‘Record Review’, WMNR Radio in the USA and Premier Christian Radio in addition to TV shows such as the BBC Great British Menu and the BBC One Show. Maria has been awarded a ‘Digital Classical Music Award’ for the Best Digital Project by a Musician following the success of her 60 week global online composition project #7Notesin7Daysat7pm as featured on Classic FM, Gramophone Blog and International Piano.
Maria Marchant performs at leading venues in the UK and abroad. Principally known as a pianist, she has played at numerous venues including Cadogan Hall, Champs Hill, Konzerthaus (Berlin), Royal Albert Hall, Southbank Centre, St David’s Hall (Cardiff), St John’s Smith Square, Steinway Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Wigmore Hall and the Y Theatre (Hong Kong).
Maria is pianist-in-residence in the Shipley Arts Festival and a founding member of the Stradivarius Piano Trio who have a busy concert schedule and have featured on BBC Great British Menu; she frequently collaborates with composers, including Roderick Williams OBE and has had numerous works written for her to premiere. Maria’s debut SOMM Recordings CD, Echoes of Land & Sea, was released to critical acclaim and her second SOMM album, Bantock Rediscovered, reached No. 15 in the Official Classical Chart, featuring works never before recorded on disc. She has extensive experience as a concerto soloist and has performed with Worthing Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Gibbons and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Brian Kay in addition to working with leading international orchestral players and singers.
Maria studied piano, singing and conducting at Trinity Laban (formerly Trinity College of Music), winning numerous piano competitions in addition to the Conducting Prize before gaining the MMus in Advanced Piano Performance at the Royal College of Music as an RCM Hilda Anderson Deane Scholar and BBC Performing Arts Fund Award recipient. She has studied with many professors including Alexander Ardakov, Philip Colman, Niel Immelman and Yonty Solomon. She won the International Hindemith Competition, Berlin, and was selected as an artist on the Concordia, Tillett Trust and Park Lane Group schemes resulting in Wigmore and Southbank appearances. Maria has played for HRH Duchess of Cornwall, Dame Mary Berry and numerous celebrities in addition to patients in hospital and believes in sharing music with everyone; she has also worked as ambassador for the Concordia Foundation, a charity set up to support vulnerable communities through the Arts. An experienced educator, Maria works coaching choristers at King’s College School, Cambridge, in their annual Scholars’ Concerts; she sung for 12 years as soprano with the BBC Symphony Chorus and is also an ABRSM Examiner and is an experienced accompanist.
Maria is a Christian and is Choir Leader at All Souls Church, Langham Place where she directs the All Souls Choir in services, concerts and recordings. She has conducted the All Souls Choir and Orchestra live on the BBC One Show, led music for services and has project managed and directed numerous virtual singing projects for All Souls Music social media. Maria has also written articles and blogs for several classical music publications including Gramophone Magazine and Music Matters.
