Kuba Williams & Ameen Elbadri
Event Details
Date: Thursday 24 April 2025
Doors Open: 18:00
Time: 18:30
Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes
Venue: Forsyth Music Shop, Deansgate, Manchester, M3 2GR
About The Event
Experience the original version of Shostakovich’s visionary Fourth Symphony with the Manchester-based piano duo Kuba Williams and Ameen Elbadri.
Composed with great difficulty between 1935-6, Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony is one of his most experimental and emotionally draining works. Due to its extreme dissonance (and the poor response from Soviet officials regarding his opera Lady Macbeth) he was forced to withdraw the work during rehearsals, leaving the orchestral version unperformed and unheard for 25 years. The two-piano version arranged by the composer was itself difficult to acquire before its first circulation in 1946, only to also be banned from circulation two years later.
When Shostakovich eventually reconstructed the lost orchestral score for its 1961 premiere, it featured several revisions that we would be unaware of if it were not for the piano arrangement. This concert is an exceedingly rare opportunity to hear the original version of the symphony in the only form that would have been possible for the first quarter of a century of the work’s lifespan.
Kuba and Ameen were contemporary students at the University of Manchester where they began their collaboration as a piano duo culminating in a performance of Rzewski’s Cotton Mill Blues and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at a lunchtime recital. They have a combined interest in contemporary composition and premiered Sina Saloor’s Raz-o Niaz at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Booking Information
This is a free event. Spaces are limited. Reserve your spot to ensure entry.
For queries please email [email protected] or phone 0161 834 3281 ext. 100
Programme
About the Performers
Kuba Williams is a composer and pianist based in Manchester. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Manchester and is now in the final year of a composition master’s at the Royal Northern College of Music. As a pianist, Kuba has explored mostly 20th-century and modern repertoire with composers such as Ligeti, Adès, and Bartók featured on his programmes. He has also delved into experimental improvisation and performance art, including a performance of Matthew Schlomowitz’s ‘Letter Piece #1 Arsenal, Bahrain, Chihuahua, Darjeeling & Eisenhower’.
Ameen Elbadri is a musicologist and pianist based in Manchester. He completed undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Manchester where he is now studying Ethel Smyth for his PhD. Ameen has experience both as a soloist and collaborative pianist with a specific interest in Romantic and early 20th-century music including Schubert, Chopin, Mahler, Lili Boulanger, Prokofiev, Leo Ornstein, Stravinsky and Messiaen. His most recent achievements include a public performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time at the University of Manchester with fellow students.
Location
Manchester
M3 2GR
For queries please email [email protected] or phone 0161 834 3281 ext. 100