Concert

Around the Debussy piano

09.05.2024

Yiannis Kourtoglou

Join artists Eleni Charalambous and Christos Fountos for a concert where cultures meet. The artists will offer an anthology of songs, opera arias and interludes from around the world, paying tribute to Debussy’s “piano” before it leaves for restoration.

For a spring evening at Villa Medici, soprano Eleni Charalambous and Cypriot pianist Christos Fountos propose to explore the different languages that create poetry and verse, and which, thanks to classical music, become songs. The concert will be a piano tribute to Claude Debussy, himself one of the many composers deeply inspired by literature, who stayed at Villa Medici as a Prix de Rome laureate.

THE DEBUSSY PIANO AND ITS RESTORATION

A romantic piano par excellence, the Pleyel half-tail piano known as the “Debussy” was made by one of the most prestigious manufacturers of the 19th century, founded by Ignace Pleyel in 1807. A long tradition has identified this piano as the one on which Claude Debussy is said to have composed during his stay in Rome, between 1885 and 1887. This historic instrument, with its inimitable sound, “powerful and even, clear and silvery, with a great lightness of touch and a remarkable extension of vibrations” (Michaël Levinas), embodies the qualities Debussy sought in his compositions.

This is the last concert on the Debussy piano before it is sent off for restoration as part of a major Villa Medici campaign, to restore a musical instrument from the Villa Medici collections each year: the Donzelague harpsichord, the Gaveau piano, the Erard pianoforte, the Pleyel “Debussy” piano and the positive organ. The campaign has a dual objective: to enhance the value of this exceptional heritage, while enabling the Académie to develop high-quality musical programming that showcases the restored instruments.

Eleni Charalambous

Soprano Eleni Charalambous first studied at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music in London. It was during this time that she discovered classical singing and studied with soprano Joan Rodgers CBE, before perfecting her vocal skills with baritone Romualdo Savastano in Rome. Eleni Charalambous has performed at the Musikverein in Vienna with the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra, at the Nicosia Municipal Theater in the Symphony of Language vocal and piano recital under the aegis of the Nicosia International Festival 2023-2024, at the Palazzo Farnese and Teatro Arciliuto in Rome, at the Cícle de Música Clàssica Villa-real in Spain, and at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel and Blackheath Halls in London. She will then perform in Italy, Austria, Cyprus and the UK.

Christos Fountos

Christos Fountos obtained his piano diploma from the National Conservatory of Cyprus before making his solo debut with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra. He then studied under Philip Fowke, Martino Tirimo and Sergio de Simone at the TrinityLaban Conservatoire of Music in London. He currently holds a Carne Junior Fellowship in chamber music. Christos Fountos performs regularly: solo piano repertoire, including new music, chamber music and vocal repertoire as accompanist. He has recently collaborated with the Croydon, Havant, Guilford and Epsom symphony orchestras, as well as the Cambridge Sampson Orchestra. Christos Fountos is a Young Artist of the Worshipful Company of Musicians of the City of London.

Christos Fountos performs regularly: solo piano repertoire, including new music, chamber...