Piano master Dang Thai Son to grace SZ Concert Hall

While local piano fans are still savoring the passionate evening of Oct. 29 when Chinese-Canadian young talent Bruce Liu entertained them with his brilliant interpretations of Chopin, Bach and others, his revered mentor Dang Thai Son will grace Shenzhen Concert Hall this Sunday.

According to late Chinese pianist Fou Ts’ong, “Those who can truly get Chopin’s music are few and far between in this world, but Dang Thai Son is certainly one of them.”

Dang Thai Son

Dang is renowned as an interpreter of Debussy and Ravel and he has appeared as soloist with major orchestras around the world. Yet it is his ability to convey the beauty and tragedy of Chopin’s music that has brought him special acclaim.

Sunday’s program will feature the works of two French impressionists — Fauré and Debussy — as well as Chopin, a great pianist and composer forced into exile who spent most of his short life in France, writing sad music and lamenting the fate of his motherland Poland.

It will include Fauré’s “Nocturne in E-flat Minor, Op. 33, No. 1” and “Barcarolle No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 26,” Debussy’s “Two Arabesques” and five pieces from the two books of “Images” (“Reflections in the Water,” “Homage to Rameau,” “Movement,” “Bells Through the Leaves,” and “Goldfish”), as well as Chopin’s waltzes, Ecossaises (meaning the “Scottish dance”), mazurkas and his “Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53,” which is among the composer’s most admired pieces and an enduring favorite of the romantic piano repertoire.

Dang’s ability to resonate with Chopin derives partly from their shared fate, with both being romantic and sensitive souls forced to live in a foreign land.

Born in Hanoi in 1958, Dang began piano studies with his mother, Thai Thi Lien, co-founder of what is known today as the Vietnam National Academy of Music. As a boy taking refuge from the Vietnamese war in a remote village, Dang played on dilapidated pianos that were rescued from his mother’s school in Hanoi.

Their story was told in a 2014 feature-length documentary, “The Cannon and the Flower,” by Story4 studio. During a trip to Vietnam, Russian pianist Isaac Katz heard Dang play and encouraged him to undertake studies at the Moscow Conservatory. Dang’s teachers in Russia included Vladimir Natanson and Dmitri Bashkirov.

Dang has been chosen by Deutsche Grammophon, in partnership with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, to be a featured artist in their two-volume recording of music of Chopin on period instruments. His extensive discography also includes a pair of 2017 releases: a recording of Schubert on JVC Kenwood and a collection of works by Paderewski that includes a concerto recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy.

During the 2012-2013 season, Dang toured the world with the Beethoven Marathon — an ambitious program of all five Beethoven piano concertos. A piano professor with the prestigious New England Conservatory in the United States, Dang has served on the juries of such international competitions as the Chopin in Warsaw, Rubinstein in Tel Aviv, Busoni in Bolzano, Hamamatsu, Cleveland and others.

Time: 8 p.m., Jan. 21

Tickets: 80-580 yuan

Venue: Shenzhen Concert Hall, Futian District (深圳音乐厅)

Metro: Line 3 or 4 to Children’s Palace Station (少年宫站), Exit D