Pianist Olga Scheps is set to dazzle with the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no 2, played with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra in the City Hall, says PETA STEWART
After staggering the audiences in three concerts in Johannesburg, pianist Olga Scheps left for concerts and a recital in Durban and is finally making it back to Cape Town – to play the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no 2 with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra in the Friends of Orchestral Music Benefit. This takes place as the last of the Spring Symphony season concerts, on Thursday, 29 November 2018 at the City Hall at 8pm.
Ms Scheps, a Steinway artist, first came to the orchestra’s attention a year ago, and was scheduled to perform in the last CPO summer music festival until the dates had to change when the City Hall was closed for refurbishment and the orchestra moved to Artscape. She still came to the country, and played a recital at La Motte, one that made everyone else green with envy.
She’s glad to be back.
“I met many very nice and passionate people here and I am looking forward so much to this concert! I also love this place, and had the chance to spend some time off in Cape Town, that was wonderful,” she says.
Although her parents tell her she was a toddler when she showed interest in the piano, she only started to play at the age of five! With parents who were pianists (her father not only performs but is a professor of piano and her mother teaches piano to kids, adults, beginners and professionals) there was always music in the home.
The home was initially in Moscow, but when she was six the family moved to Cologne in Germany.
She also enjoyed being a performer from early on, starting with friends and family, but when she entered her teens her parents entered her in to two youth piano competitions in Germany and she won. After that the invitations to perform professionally followed. She made her debut in the Piano Concerto no 1 by Prokofiev with a German orchestra in Dusseldorf at the age of 15. You can see the concert above, of which Olga says: “It was filmed with an old camera by my mother and the quality is poor but for me it is a wonderful reminder.”
Even at that age you can see the joy she gets out of music. You can hear her Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue performed a year later:
“The high point of my professional life is always the next concert, the preparation and the joy of music. I think it´s not possible to do this profession without joy,” says Olga.
It was in Germany that the young Olga came to the attention of Alfred Brendel, who became her champion, encouraging her to higher ideas. She won scholarships, graduated from the Hochschule in Cologne, passing her Concert Exam with distinction. Her teachers along the way have been Pavel Gililov, Arie Vardi and Dmitri Bashkirov.
Loves variety
She loves the variety her life offers, and loves to play with orchestras, but she also enjoys playing recitals and chamber music. “There is so much interesting, wonderful music out there to play. Last month I also performed Schumann’s Piano Quintet at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg with scholars of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben which gave me a scholarship. It was such a joy to perform with these wonderful musicians as a special guest,” says Olga Scheps.
When she leaves Cape Town, it will be for a recital in Johannesburg and then back to Germany for more recitals and then preparation for her next recording of the Weinberg Quintet and Kuss Quintet for Sony Classical, for whom she records exclusively. Her debut album, Chopin, immediately won an ECHO Klassik award, followed by several more acclaimed releases
She will also spend time at home in Cologne. “I love it to be home because I am hardly there. I love cooking, and doing normal things like watching movies and hanging out with friends,” she reckons.
Also on the programme are the overture, Coriolan, by Beethoven and the Fifth Symphony by Shostakovich.
What: CPO Spring Symphony season with Olga Scheps (pianist) and Perry So (conductor)
Where and when: Cape Town City Hall on 29 November 2018
Book: http://bit.ly/FOMBenefit or Artscape Dial-A-Seat 021 421 7695
WS
