Ukrainian refugees to attend concert near Wigan performed by one of their home-grown musical superstars

Vitaly Pisarenko will be performing a dazzling program of music for solo piano by the great romantics: Franz Schubert and Franz Liszt.

Given the war in eastern Europe at the moment, this concert will have an extra emotional resonance.

In fact organizers from Parbold Douglas Music, whose village hall auditorium has been attracting A-list classical musicians for years now, have been surprised and delighted to see that two tickets have in fact been bought via the internet from Ukraine itself!

And they know that among those listening will be folk from his homeland who fled Putin’s invasion aariler this year and are now being hosted locally.

Now London-based, Ukrainian-Russian virtuoso Pisarenko won third prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2015 and has gone on to gain worldwide recognition.

He is highly regarded as an interpreter of the music of Liszt, and won first prize at the eighth International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht.

Pisarenko teaches at the Purcell School of Music in Hertfordshire and has been appointed assistant professor at the Royal College of Music in London.

He has selected a fascinating program showing the close connections between the works of the two featured composers, including songs written by Schubert which were later transcribed for solo piano by Liszt.

Liszt himself was renowned for his astonishing technical skills as a virtuoso pianist, and the music he composed for piano ranks among the most challenging in the piano repertoire.

Critically acclaimed as a pianist of unusually soft touch, prodigious technique and captivating expressiveness, Pisarenko has performed in more than 30 countries, including solo recitals in London, Vienna, Moscow, Brussels, Beijing, Shanghai, Salzburg, Antwerp, Japan, Hong Kong, Paris and Budapest.

Likewise, he has also played with the some of the great orchestras in venues across the world

Pisarenko is the first of the international pianists featured in the Parbold Douglas 2022/23 concert season which continues with seven further concerts showcasing international musicians.

Concert pianists Eric Lu, Pavel Kolesnikov, Anna Fedorova and Noriko Ogawa feature alongside the Meliora Collective and Victoria String Quartet.

All concerts take place at Parbold Village Hall where Douglas Music Parbold presents its annual series of concerts featuring world-class musicians.

The hall boasts a Steinway concert grand piano and an impressively intimate auditorium with a celebrated acoustic where audiences can get thrillingly close to performers.

As attracting audiences for concerts becomes increasingly challenging for all venues, the society says it is proud to be keeping the same ticket prices as last year, enabling as wide an audience as possible to attend.

Tickets for each concert are £20 and just £5 for young people and students (a price which has remained constant for over 15 years). Car parking is also free.

Tickets can be booked by visiting the website www.parbolddouglasmusic.org, emailing [email protected] or phoning 01257 498452.