Swan Lake, created from Russian folk tales as well as an ancient German legend, tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse.

Concerts:

January 15th, 2010 / 7.00 p.m. / MACM

January 16th, 2010 / 4.00 p.m. / MACM

Conductor:

Capt. Prateep Suphanrojn

Soloist:

Jerzy Sterczyński, Piano

Program:

• Thai Traditional Music
• Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No.2 in F minor, op.21
• Peter I. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake Suite, op.20

Jerzy Sterczyński, Piano

Born in 1957. Began to learn the piano when he was six. Finished Music High School in Bielsko-Biała, studied at the Katowice Academy of Music in Professor Andrzej Jasiński’s class and graduated with honours in 1981. He then continued his training in London with John Bingham.

He won the first prize at the Young Performers prize at the Polish Piano Festival in Słupsk and the second prize at the International Music Competition in Saragossa (1983). He is a very active concert performer. He has played in Austria, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, France, Spain, South Korea, Kuwait, Germany, Portugal and Italy. He has taken part in the Chopin Festival in Duszniki and also in festivals in Lockenhaus and La Chaise-Dieu.

Recordings occupy a special place in his artistic work. Jerzy Sterczyński has recorded 13 compact discs with all Chopin’s nocturnes, waltzes and polonaises as well as his Sonata No. 2 and several small pieces. He has also recorded solo works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Reger and Szymanowski, and Chopin’s, Lessl’s and Dobrzyński’s concertos. His latest record, released in 2005, contains Józef Wieniawski’s solo and cello sonatas.

Jerzy Sterczyński has been a professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw since 1989. He was dean of the Department of Piano, Harpsicord and Organ in 2005-2008. He was re-elected for term 2008-2012.

On 1 March 2010 Poland and the whole cultural Word will mark the bicentenary of the birth of the great Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin.

Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849), one of the greatest artists in the history of Polish culture, the most distinguished Polish composer, as well as a leading pianist and representative of the music of the Romantic period in the world. He is sometimes called a poet of the piano. Although he belongs to the most willingly played composers of piano music, his pieces require the performer to possess excellent technique and virtuosity. Lying at the source of his work is great artistic sensitivity and the ability to draw on the patterns of Polish folk music. Fryderyk Chopin is an artist who played an exceptional role in shaping Polish national identity. Recognizing the special importance of his artistic output for the Polish and global heritage, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland proclaims 2010 as the Year of Fryderyk Chopin.

The grand jubilee celebrations of the bicentenary of the Chopin’s birth are overseen by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw. The International Committee for the Fryderyk Chopin Bicentenary was established and is under the honorary patronage of Lech Kaczynski, President of the Republic of Poland. The Chairman of the Committee is Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland. The co-Chairman are Bogdan Zdrojewski, Minister of Culture and National Heritage, and Radoslaw Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

On January 1, 2010, Bogdan Zdrojewski, Minister of Culture and National Heritage, officially launched Chopin Year at the house where Chopin was born, in Zelazowa Wola, 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of the capital Warsaw. A special address by Mr. Zbigniew Zdrojewski was followed by a recital given by the 82 year-old American virtuoso Boris Janis and the 14 year-old Polish-born Canadian Jas Lisiecki. Chopin Year will include around 2,000 separate events, from concerts and exhibitions to films and theatrical performances – with only 1,200 of them taking place in Poland itself. Today’s concert in Mahidol College of Music, inaugurates the celebrations of the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth in Thailand.