Konstantin Shamray - Piano Soloist 'Clerici conducts Tchaikovsky'

Saint-Saëns incorporated influences from Javanese, Spanish, and Middle-Eastern music into the ‘Egyptian’ concerto. How do you approach bringing out these diverse cultural flavours in your performance?

Indeed, this concerto seems to be quite exotic, in an artistic way, not a ‘scientific’ way. Everything depends on the sound world, the colours. My approach is to bring up different sonorities, colours out of the piano and let the audience listen and imagine, and everyone might have a different vision.

The ‘Egyptian’ concerto is both technically demanding and richly expressive. What aspects of the piece do you find most exciting or challenging to interpret?

It seems quite simple; however, this piece has a lot of ‘rocks under water’. One of its features is avoiding trivial, symmetrical structures (for example, in the first movement), which makes music more interesting but also adds some awkward ensemble moments. As Stravinsky said:‘What is absolutely symmetrical is absolutely dead’, and I love it and can’t agree more.

What do you hope the audience will feel or take away from your performance of this vibrant and colourful work?

Everyone will take away something different. My goal (and hope) is that everyone WILL take something away, that would mean the performance was worth going to.

You performed with the DSO in 2023 to great acclaim. How does it feel to return, and what makes this collaboration special for you?

I simply can’t wait to return. I have very fond memories of DSO.