To open this year’s Spotlight Chamber Music Series, New York-based Cork native Kevin Jansson will present a beautiful programme of three solo piano works.

The recital will open with one of Mozart’s most beloved piano sonatas, a compact work in three movements which perfectly demonstrates the composer’s mastery of classical form. Contemporary Irish composer Philip Martin’s work The Rainbow Comes and Goes will follow, a short piece commissioned in 1987 by the Dublin International Piano Competition, comprising four fragments after William Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. The programme will conclude with a simply sublime set of four impromptus by Schubert. Written the year before he died and at the height of his compositional prowess, these self-contained miniatures are characterised by their lyricism, expressive depth and poetic sensitivity.

This concert, given by an exceptional young Irish artist, promises to be unmissable.

Musicians:

Kevin Jansson – Piano

Programme:

Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K. 330

Philip Martin: The Rainbow Comes and Goes

Schubert: Four Impromptus, D. 899, Op. 90

About the Musician

Born in 2000, Irish pianist Kevin Jansson has received six international 1st prizes on piano and violin. At 16, he released his solo piano debut CD under the Claves label, including the premiere recording of Thierry Escaich’s Études Impressionnistes. Most recently he received the 1st prize at the Jeune Chopin Competition in Switzerland, which received patronage from the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw and Martha Argerich.

Kevin began his piano studies at the age of six with Mary Beattie at the Cork School of Music. He is a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School, where he is pursuing his master’s degree under Robert McDonald, having completed his bachelor’s degree under Julian Martin and Yoheved Kaplinsky. Other mentors include Laurie Smukler, Joel Krosnick, and Itzhak Perlman.

A passionate chamber musician, Kevin is a member of the Amara Trio, which received the 1st prize at the 2024 Chesapeake International Chamber Music Competition, and he is an alumnus of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and the Perlman Music Program.

Kevin’s other passions include traditional Irish music and physics: aged 13 he received 1st prize at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann for traditional Irish music on the fiddle, and he also received the gold medal at the Irish National Physics Olympiad 2016 and a silver medal representing Ireland at the European Union Science Olympiad in Copenhagen in 2017.