Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 15, 16, 17 (KV 450, 451, 453) Claire Huangci, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg & Howard Griffiths

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): Piano Concerto No.16 in D Major, K. 451:
• 1 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.16 in D Major, K. 451: I. Allegro 10:09
• 2 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.16 in D Major, K. 451: II. Andante 05:18
• 3 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.16 in D Major, K. 451: III. Rondo. Allegro di molto 06:16
• Piano Concerto No.15 in B-Flat Major, K. 450:
• 4 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.15 in B-Flat Major, K. 450: I. Allegro 10:28
• 5 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.15 in B-Flat Major, K. 450: II. Andante 04:23
• 6 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.15 in B-Flat Major, K. 450: III. Allegro 07:22
• Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K. 453:
• 7 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K. 453: I. Allegro 11:38
• 8 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K. 453: II. Andante 08:48
• 9 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K. 453: III. Allegretto. Presto 07:14
• Total Runtime 01:11:36

Info for Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 15, 16, 17 (KV 450, 451, 453)

The Orpheum Foundation, which has been supporting young musicians for more than thirty years, has joined forces with Alpha Classics for a series of recordings devoted to Mozart’s concertos for various instruments. The finest soloists of the young generation have been selected under the artistic direction of Howard Griffiths, a renowned Mozart conductor, who considers that playing his music is like ‘looking in a mirror: you can hear if everything is in place, musicality, intonation, rhythm, phrasing’. For this fifth volume, the American pianist Claire Huangci joins the Mozarteum-Orchester Salzburg and Howard Griffiths, her mentor for the past ten years. For her, she says, these concertos are ‘true musical revelations, works full of virtuosity and imagination’.

Claire Huangci, piano
Mozarteumorchester Salzbur
Howard Griffiths, conductor

Claire Huangci
The young American pianist Claire Huangci, winner of the first prize and the Mozart prize at the 2018 Geza Anda Competition, continuously captivates audiences with her “radiant virtuosity, artistic sensitivity, keen interactive sense and subtle auditory dramaturgy” (Salzburger Nachrichten). With an irrepressible curiosity and penchant for unusual repertoire, she proves her versatility with a wide range in repertoire spanning from Bach and Scarlatti, to Bernstein, Gulda, and Corigliano.

In solo recitals and with international orchestras, Claire has appeared in some of the most prestigious halls such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall Tokyo, NCPA Beijing, Paris Philharmonie, Munich Gasteig, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Salzburg Festspielhaus, and the Budapest Franc Liszt Akademie. She is a welcome guest in renowned festivals including Lucerne Festival, Verbier Festival, Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival and Klavier Festival Ruhr. Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, ORF Radio Orchester Vienna, Vancouver Symphony, and China Philharmonic Orchestra, together with Sir Roger Norrington, Howard Griffiths, Eva Ollikainen, Mario Venzago, Cornelius Meister, and Elim Chan are among her esteemed musical partners.

For an intense start of the 2020/21 season, Claire paid homage to Beethoven’s anniversary with a compelling interpretation of his Pastorale symphony arranged for solo piano by Franz Liszt, with concerts at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and the Rheingau Musik Festival, where her recital was recorded for T-Mobile‘s streaming platform MagentaMusik 360. After appearances as a piano duo with Alexei Volodin at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and the release of a new album with her Trio Machiavelli, a major highlight is her Fall 2020 recital tour at the main halls of Berlin Philharmonie, and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. Later in the season, a further exciting debut takes place in the „Great Performers Series“ at New York‘s Lincoln Center. Among her orchestra engagements are dates with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, Museumsorchester Frankfurt, Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. With the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, she will direct concertos of Mozart and Chopin from the keyboard.

Claire Huangci began her international career at the age of nine with concert performances and competition successes. After studying with Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she moved to Germany in 2007 for further studies with Arie Vardi at the Hannover Musikhochschule, completing them with honors in 2016. Early in her artistic career, she stood out as an expressive interpreter of Chopin, winning first prizes at the Chopin competitions in Darmstadt and Miami in 2009 and 2010. She was also the youngest participant to receive second prize at the International ARD Music Competition in 2011.

After recording her debut CD with solo works of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and her prizewinning double album of Scarlatti sonatas (German Record Critics’ Award and Gramophone Editor’s Choice), she released highly acclaimed recordings of Chopin’s Nocturnes in 2017 and in 2018 of Rachmaninoff’s complete Préludes: Following recordings of Beethoven’s violin concerto in the piano version and Fantasy for piano and orchestra by Schubert / Kabalewski with the RSO Vienna, her first orchestral album of Chopin and Paderewski with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken under Shiyeon Sung was released in Fall 2019. In summer of 2020, her first chamber music album was released with Trio Machiavelli, whose interpretations of Ravel trio and Chausson piano quartet proved „a wholly exhilarating debut (…) splendidly transparent, and always expressive.“ (BR Klassik).

Booklet for Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 15, 16, 17 (KV 450, 451, 453)