Next season, the Edesche Concertzaal will be presenting the World Pianist series. Six world-class pianists, including Nikolai Lugansky, Abdel Rahman El Bacha and Boris Giltburg, will play the famous Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano. The Spanish pianist Luis Fernando Pérez, who has never before been heard in the Netherlands, will also visit the Edesche Concertzaal.

Bösendorfer Imperial

In the Edesche Concert Hall, audiences will not only hear the very best pianists in the world, but also one of the most beautiful grand pianos in the Netherlands. The Bösendorfer Imperial, with its nine extra bass keys, is the Bösendorfer flagship, fully adapted to the sublime acoustics. The six world-class pianists will take the listener through programs that are fully tuned to the Bösendorfer Imperial. These include famous classics from the piano repertoire such as Liszt's Piano Sonata and Totentanz, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Chopin's 24 Preludes.

Abdel Rahman El Bacha

Ukrainian pianist Vitaly Pisarenko, winner of the 2008 Liszt Competition, opens the series on 18 September. With music by Schubert and Liszt, he lets two different sides of his musical heart speak. The rarely heard Lebanese pianist Abdel Rahman El Bacha continues the series on 13 November with Beethoven's piano sonata 'Appassionata' and Chopin's 24 Preludes, among others.

Dutch debut Luis Fernando Pérez

Even more exceptional is the recital by Spanish pianist Luis Fernando Pérez. On 15 January he will make his Dutch debut in the Edesche Concertzaal. Especially for this occasion, he will be playing music from his homeland, including excerpts from Albéniz's masterpiece Iberia and El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla.

Nikolai Lugansky and the Franck year

Nikolai Lugansky will play two of Beethoven's best-known piano sonatas: the Moonlight Sonata and the Storm Sonata. Lugansky combines these two masterpieces with piano music by César Franck, who was born exactly two hundred years ago on 10 December 2022. Like Pisarenko, Thomas Beijer opts for contrast on 12 March and juxtaposes Schubert's atmospheric Moments musicaux with Skrjabin's stormy Third Piano Sonata.

Boris Giltburg

Boris Giltburg concludes the series on 14 May with Rachmaninov's First Piano Sonata and Liszt's B minor Piano Sonata. Both sonatas are said to be based on Goethe's play Faust. Liszt's sonata in particular is regarded as one of the highlights of the piano repertoire, in which virtuosity and depth are completely in balance.