Theresa Yu to launch ’16 summer concerts

PIANO POTENTIAL: Renowned as a charismatic performer, London-based Australian pianist Theresa Yu will be in Gisborne this weekend to launch the 2016 Tiromoana Summer Concert Series. Picture supplied

IT is no secret that arts patron Professor Jack Richards is a fan of the piano.

He has a gleaming Kawai grand installed in his Wainui hilltop home, Tiromoana. And when he found out that Tairawhiti Museum did not have an in-house piano, he set his agents to work on finding one.

So this year, Prof. Richards has concentrated on pianists for the two-part Tiromoana Concert Series, the annual fundraisers he runs for the Gisborne International Music Competition, of which he is patron.

Later in the month there will be a concert from teen Christchurch prodigy Li Xin who, at just 14, is touted as being a remarkable talent of the future.

This week, however, Prof. Richards hosts a young artist already making good on her early promise, outstanding 19-year-old pianist Theresa Yu.

From Australia, the award-winning graduate is currently undertaking undergraduate studies at the Royal College of Music in London, where she is also keeping up a brisk programme of recitals.

She is renowned as a particularly charismatic performer and has played everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to St Paul’s Cathedral (London) and, as part of her commmitment to outreach work, on the Memory Lane programme at Chelsea And Westminster Hospital, also in London.

For her recital in Gisborne on Saturday, Yu plans to include in the programme Beethoven’s second-to-last sonata, the profound Piano Sonata No. 31 in Ab major Op. 110, with which she has already had considerable success.

The piece runs the entire gamut of human emotion one audience member said after hearing her perform the work in Britain in November.

“Forget the X-Factor, this is a work with ‘wow factor’ and the audience absolutely loved it.”