Ami Hakuno & Pascal Rogé, Two Pianos
SUNDAY, April 19, 2009 at 2:30pm
Programme
- Claude Debussy - En Blanc Et Noir
- Maurice Ravel - Rhaspodie Espagnole
- Francis Poulenc - Elegie
- Sergei Rachmaninoff - Suite No.2 Op.17
Bios
Ami Hakuno, Piano
"...aliveness, mercurial temperament, and uplifting...."‑New York Concert Review
Ami Hakuno is a versatile performer on both the piano and the harpsichord. She has appeared in music festivals such as the Roundtop Music Festival, Conservatoire Americain de Fontainebleau, Boston Early Music Festival, Amherst Early Music Festival, and Townsville Australian Festival of Chamber Music.
Born to a Japanese mother and Indonesian father, Ami began studying the piano as a small child in her native city of Tokyo. She moved with her family to Houston, then to New York where she received her training from the Juilliard School and Mannes College. Her piano teachers include Shu Hao Pao, Oxana Yablonskaya, Leon Pommers, and Sophia Rosoff. She also studied harpsichord with Arthur Haas, and chamber music with Martha McGaughey.
For several years now, Ami has partnered Pascal Rogé both on stage and in life. With him, she has performed four-hand and two-piano repertoire around the world, in New York, Hong Kong, Poland, Australia, France, Italy, Ireland, Great Britain, and Portugal. She has made orchestral appearance with him performing Poulenc Double Concerto with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Poznan Philharmonic, and Orchestra Metropolitan of Lisbon.
Pascal Rogé, Piano
"Like no other pianist alive or dead!"‑ Evening Standard
Pascal Rogé exemplifies the finest in French pianism; his playing of Poulenc, Satie, Fauré, Saint-Saëns or Ravel in particular is characterised by its elegance, beauty and delicate phrasing - his name is synonymous with the best playing of French repertory in the world today. Born in Paris, Pascal Rogé became an exclusive DECCA recording artist at the age of 17.
He has won many prestigious awards including two GRAMOPHONE AWARDS, a Grand Prix du Disque and an Edison award for his interpretations of the Ravel and Saint-Saëns concertos. Other recordings feature a Debussy cycle, a Bartok cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra. For the Poulenc Edition 1999 Mr. Rogé recorded both piano concertos, the “Aubade“, the Concerto Champêtre for harpsichord and orchestra, all under Maestro Dutoit.
For Oehms Classics Mr Rogé recently recorded to unanimous acclaim, the Ravel G Major and Gershwin concertos with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bertrand De Billy and in 2007, a second volume with Ravel left hand concerto and Gerswhin Rhapsody in Blue will be released.
Pascal Rogé’s latest recording project is under his own label “Rogé Edition”, designed to show his own recording work going forward and distributed by the new Onyx label.
The first CD release in May 2005 inaugurates his first complete Debussy cycle with the complete Preludes. The second volume and two Mozart concertos with the Indianapolis Symphony orchestra under Raymond Leppard have been released in 2007.
Pascal Rogé has performed in almost every major concert hall in the world. Some of the orchestras he has appeared with include the Philadelphia Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, l’Orchestre de Paris, l’Orchestre National de Radio France, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Geneva, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and all the major London orchestras.
He appears regularly in the United States, is a frequent guest artist in Latin America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and especially in Japan.
