PETA STEWART
She may be only 18, she may be labelled “Wunderkid”, but Lucienne Renaudin Vary is here to stay. Listen to a YouTube clip of part of the concerto she will play on August 24 with the Cape Town Philharmonic, Hummel, and you will see why she is being called sensational.
She will also play the Rachmaninov Romance in the first of four concerts in the Spring Symphony Season. The concert, directed by principal guest conductor Bernhard Gueller, takes place at The Cape Town City Hall at 8 pm. She will also give a recital for Friends of Orchestral Music on Monday, August 21, at 6.30pm at the Table Bay Hotel, where she will no doubt show off her jazz musicianship as well! She will be partnered by Francois du Toit.
The Shostakovich is one of her favourite pieces
It was with the Hummel and the London Chamber Orchestra with Vladimir Ashekenazy that she made her London debut in May at Cadogan Hall in London. She first played with both in Bodrum in Turkey last year, and it was in the Shostakovich Concerto for Piano and Trumpet with Daniel Kharitonov, Third prizewinner in the last Tchaikovsky Piano Competition and the soloist in the CPO’s concert the following week on August 31. She remembers the experience as “incredible. We played on a beautiful stage next to the sea. It is simply unforgettable. LCO is such a wonderful orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy is a beautiful person, very warm. Playing with them was a dream and I am very happy to meet with them again in Belgium in September.”
She says that playing the Shostakovich, one of her favourite pieces, rich, with different and caries atmospheres, was great. “Daniel is a brilliant pianist with an incredible sense of musicality and such a smooth but strong playing. I felt something very strong on stage with the conductor, the pianist and the orchestra.”
Lucienne came to play trumpet by chance
“I fell in love with the instrument when I was 9; I just loved the sound, the way you hold it, the fact that you can play many different kinds of music … So I decided to apply to the Conservatoire in Mans where I was already studying music theory. Although my parents are not musicians, we always listened to music at home and they sang a lot to me when I was a baby. My brothers are both playing instruments. One, aged 13, plays the double bass (he’s really talented!) and the other, aged 10, has just started the guitar. We sometimes play together.”
She began to play both classics and jazz at once, when she was nine, and says she can’t choose her favourite. “I have found a good balance between these two genres and I play them both every day. I love improvisation in jazz; it’s simultaneously both similar and yet has a completely different approach, so it’s very interesting. “
Lucienne has been winning first prizes in French and European competitions since was 11; she plays in concerts and recitals around Europe from Germany and Finland to the Festival Spikanov in Moscow; she made her Columbian debut in January in Cartagena, “a colourful paradise. I played with the French ensemble Les Siècles under François-Xavier Roth and had the chance to play with South American musicians: the Cuarteto Latino Americano in a chamber formation and a famous jazz saxophonist from Bogota on a jazz scene.”
She returns to Europe for some exciting projects such as a concert with Paavo Järvi and the Philharmonia Orchestra in Bedford in England. “I just can’t wait!” she says. Then there’s a tour of South America with Shostakovich’s Piano and Trumpet Concerto. In the meantime, she wants to continue her studies and is enrolled in a Master’s degree in classical music PLUS a bachelor’s in jazz at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris.
Then, there’s her first CD, which will be released in October. It’s a recording with the Orchestre National de Lille, conducted by Roberto Rizzi Brignoli.
“It is a really exciting project for me! This album is about vocal repertoire – I chose opera arias and jazz standards that I always loved; the jazz standards arrangements (My Funny Valentine, My Favourite Things, Summertime) were done beautifully. I just picked up the original scores and I played the vocal part with my instrument. I consider the trumpet as a voice; it’s something that I really care about. I chose lyrical arias but also instrumental pieces like Rossini’s La Danza.”
So with so much on her plate, what’s next? Composition, perhaps?
“I think it’s essential to compose for the trumpet because the repertoire is quite small at the moment; we have two great concertos in the classical period but nothing in the romantic period… So we must compose for trumpet!”
Although she has already experienced so much — the opportunity to meet Rolando Villazon in Berlin, playing with Vladimir Ashkenazy, meeting Vladimir Spivakov… “I am a lucky girl!” … she has more to do.
“I want to continue to play a lot, meet new people, musicians, conductors, and play in beautiful venues… and above all, always keep enjoying music!”
Who: Lucienne Renaudin Vary
What: Cape Town Philharmonic’s Spring Symphony Season / FOM soirée
Where: The City Hall / Table Bay Hotel, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
When: 24 August, 2017 at 8pm, and 21 August at 6.30pm
Info, book: http://bit.ly/SummertimeInSpring, http://online.computicket.com/
web/event/fom_soree_lucienne/1170157038/0/81653141
Web: www.cpo.org.za, http://www.fomct.com/
WS
