Con Brio 2019 – Semifinals and Seafarer

Furtados’ Con Brio 2019 – More Schumania: Celebrating Women

Western Music Festival & Piano Competition

In 2010, Anthony Gomes and Parvesh Java decided to memorialize John Gomes and celebrate Robert Schumann’s bicentenary by creating the first Con Brio, called Schumania. Today we embark on the tenth edition of the festival and this time we are celebrating Clara Schumann’s bicentenary. We offer you More Schumania where we celebrate Clara by showcasing the work of women composers’ right from the 11th century till the 21st. Clara was the first woman to achieve equal status to her male counterparts, not only as a composer but also as a pianist, thereby paving the way for other women composers and instrumentalists.

Competition Semifinals:

Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G minor is a masterpiece at par with the greatest chamber music ever composed and Marialena Fernandes, Eshvita Menezes and Kevin Kirs Verstege will perform the complex first movement. This will be followed by the semi-finals of this year’s competition. The second half of the programme will be Sally Beamish’s very unique The Seafarer Trio, written for narrator and piano trio, performed by Mika Nishimura, Jennifer Son and Parvesh Java, with narration by Rehaan Engineer. The half-hour work is accompanied by projections of breathtaking animated drawings of the sea by Jila Peacock.

An NCPA & Furtados Presentation