Blogcritics: Concert Review: Ukrainian Pianist Illia Ovcharenko – Music of Liszt, Scarlatti, Silvestrov, Revutsky, Chopin

Honens Competition

Mar 1

Blogcritics
By Jon Sobel

Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko dazzled an enthusiastic audience at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall on Sunday, showing NYC why at just 21 he was the laureate of the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition.

Ovcharenko is as thoughtful and exact in his concert programming as he is technically proficient and emotionally immersive at the keyboard. His first set centered on Franz Liszt’s challenging Sonata in B minor and bookended that vast opus with two Scarlatti sonatas in that same key, which set off and commented on the Liszt in interesting ways. In the second half he interspersed pieces by two Ukrainian composers, exercising his dynamic control in short works by Valentin Silvestrov and contextualizing Levko Revutsky’s late Romanticism with a Chopin Polonaise at the end.

Blogcritics: Concert Review: Ukrainian Pianist Illia Ovcharenko – Music of Liszt, Scarlatti, Silvestrov, Revutsky, Chopin

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