Milan Expo Closing day Recital ! All Rääts recital !

2016 Milan World Expo : Closing Day Recital

Last 31st October 2015 , for the very last day of the World Expo in Milan , I was extremely honored to be invited by the Estonian Pavillon to give a recital for the Closing Day.

Since this Month was exactly the very same as Jaan RÄÄTS birthday month , my idea was to make a kind of musical birthday present. And then ... i programmed a whole recital dedicated only to his music.

For amateur of contemporary music, the recital was very interesting as it displayed music from all his creatives periods : from the begining until the very last piece he composed for my Carnegie Hall recital.

Here is the complete program :

Variatsioonid Op.6 (1958)

Sonaat n°1 Op 11 n°1 (1959) [world premiere]

Prelüüd n° 4 Op.33 (1968)

Tokaata (1968)

Bagatelli n°3,4,8,15,22 Op.50 (1973)

Marginaali n° 1,19 Op.65 (1979-80)

Sonaat n°9 Op.76 (1985 rev.2014)

Eesti Prelüüdi Cm, F# Gm, Op.80 (1988-89)

Autogram Op.110 (1999)

Sonaat n°10 Op.111 (2000 rev.2014)

Radio 4 Op.124 (2004 rev.2014)

Prelüüd Op 128 (2014)

some pictures of the concert

 Succes was just amazing. It started peacefully, as few understood that a concert was really going on. But after 20 minutes and the crazy Tokaata, a huge croud started to gather all around me ! Also many reporters. As much as i remember there were like 3 different huge pro camera (you know the very big ones) , and i don't remember how many people did ZOOM recordings.
But after 40 minutes, as i was into the very strong pieces such as the Sonatas 9 & 10 , Radio 4 and the last Prelude, I had to ask my page turner really to look after me as the public was dangerously too near me (i still need some "space" around me to be able to keep the focus), there were people staring at me who were on the piano itself and also (more dangerous) people trying to take the scores !
Yes many of the scores were manuscripts and as you know composers .... when they gave you a manuscript .... if you loose them , they will never give you another one back !!!!

At the end i had a huge applause, and did 3 Encores :

Satie : Gnosienne 1

Rääts : Sonata 1 2nd movement (as i was not really happy with my first rendition)

Glass : Etudes 2, 1, 16 & 6

After it , well , spent a long time to meet the public who wanted to know much more about Jaan Rääts music , and also answered to some short interviews.

The concert was filmed with my little cam, but .... the croud was so big and the space so tinny that ... no one cared about the cam and so many people were standing front of it .....

Such an amazing moment i will remember all my life . As a child i was staring as World Expo books, and i still remember when my father visited Barcelona World Expo and told me how fantastic it was.
Never at this time i would have dream to be invited to perform in one and .... for a Closing Day !