RUSSIAN pianist Boris Berezovsky, first prize winner in the 1991 Tchaikovksy Competition, is one of the major attractions at Kilkenny Arts Week. He plays a solo recital of Ravel (including the improbable solo piano version of La valse) and Rachmaninov tomorrow, and joins violinist Vadim Repin (who comes from the same stable as Maxim Vengerov) in Hindemith, Brahms, Grieg and Prokofiev on Monday.
The music programme gets underway at lunchtime today with a recital by the young soprano Sinead Blanchfield, one of two Kilkenny singers to feature this year the other is tenor Ronan Tynan, who gives a very varied evening recital on Wednesday.
Early music is represented by the EU Baroque Orchestra under Dutch harpsichordist Bob van Asperen, whose strong programme tonight includes Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. On Friday a trumpet, soprano and harpsichord trio (Crispian Steele Perkins, Jeni Bern and, Leslie Pearson) are bundling baroque with Sullivan (yes, Sullivan of Gilbert and ... ), and the RIAM Baroque Ensemble can be heard at lunchtime on Wednesday.
On Saturday, the Beethoven String Trio of London bring a Trio by the Czech Jewish composer Gideon Klein, written while he was incarcerated in the Thereseinstadt camp set up by the Nazis in 1941. The adventurousness of contemporary repertoire which has been such a feature of Kilkenny Arts Week in the past is little in evidence this year, though the flag will be kept flying at a lunchtime concert on Tuesday by the choir Cantique.
