.png.2fedbaeed142d9ffa7ad27f243687120.png){kind=logo}
Warner Classics signs 22-year-old Italian piano sensation Beatrice Rana
Warner Classics is delighted to announce the exclusive signing of Beatrice Rana, who shot to stardom at just 20 years of age when she claimed the Silver Medal and the coveted Audience Award in the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On that occasion, Huffington Post described her performance as ‘an endlessly fascinating piece of humanity that had the orchestra riveted on every note’.
This month, in Rome, she has just finished recording her Warner Classics debut album with Sir Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. The thrilling programme – Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor, and Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto – is a bold statement for a virtuoso who ‘posesses an old soul that belies her twenty years, and more than a touch of genius’ (Gramophone).
In an interview with Repubblica newspaper in Italy, Rana praised Pappano as a ‘formidable conductor with prodigious energy. I admire his dedication as well as his rustic, hands-on approach. My grandparents toiled the land and this has had a profound impact on me: the cult of manual labour with hands which is so integral to our work as musicians.’
Born in 1993, the daughter of two pianists, Rana made her orchestral debut at the age of nine. She has amassed an impressive number of first prizes in international piano competitions, such as Muzio Clementi Competition, the International Piano Competition of the Republic of San Marino and the Bang&Olufsen PianoRAMA Competition. She was selected in 2010 as one of the six pianists taking part in the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Prize, attending a prestigious masterclass with Arie Vardi, with whom she now studies in Hannover. On 1st August, she makes her Verbier Festival recital debut, stepping in for Mikhail Pletnev.
Rana is in demand as a soloist with orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall , the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the RAI Symphony Torino, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, and the Filarmonica della Scala, the Maggio Musicale, under the baton of conductors including Yannick Nézet-Seguin, Jun Märkl, Leonard Slatkin, Trevor Pinnock, Fabien Gabel, Fayçal Karoui, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Andrès Orozco-Estrada, Susanna Mälkki, Fabio Luisi and Zubin Mehta.
‘Within just a few seasons, Beatrice Rana has risen to the highest rung among the new generation of pianists,’ said Warner Classics and Erato President Alain Lanceron. ‘We are convinced that a star is born and are particularly pleased to have been able to bring about all the ideal artistic conditions for her first Warner Classics recording.’
Warner Classics and Erato Executive Vice-President of Artists and Repertoire Jean-Philippe Rolland added: ‘Beatrice Rana has everything – exquisite technique combined with a Mediterranean passion reminiscent of the golden age of the piano. She has a vision and inspiration we seldom encounter at such young age.’
Beatrice Rana’s debut album for Warner Classics – Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev piano concertos with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Sir Antonio Pappano – will be released in the coming months.
She will perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.2 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Southbank Centre on 27th November.
.png.e72da60cd6041b6257b6f4f3841b5c60.png)
