Les métamorphoses de l'âme

Discover the virtuosity of this exceptional pianist in a concert that will stir your soul!

Kennosuke Iizuka has chosen to bring together in this programme works that differ greatly in their era and their world. Yet, for him, they share a common thread: each one explores, in its own way, the depths of the human being. The recital opens with Frederico Mompou, in an intimate and almost silent world. A few notes are sometimes enough to awaken an emotion. With Ondine by Maurice Ravel, this intimacy gives way to dream and imagination. The music becomes freer and more colourful. Robert Schumann's Novelette op. 21 no. 8 brings a more direct energy into the music. Inner impulses and conflicts take centre stage. In Enrique Granados's Los Requiebros, this energy becomes more earthly and sensual. It blends with the colours and rhythms of Spain. Finally, in Franz Liszt's Sonata, Kennosuke Iizuka feels with particular force a question that seems to him profoundly human: "What is the human being?" Desire, love and wisdom confront one another there, as do good and evil. In almost thirty minutes, Liszt seems to bring forth a multitude of faces of the human being. These pieces are very different from one another. Yet they all speak, each in its own way, of what unfolds in the deepest part of us. The pianist loves the idea of performing them together and following this path that leads from silence and dream towards passion and great drama.

Artist biography

Kennosuke Iizuka, born in 1998 in Japan. In 2020, he graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geidai), where he earned his piano diploma as the top graduate of his year. On that occasion, he received five awards: the Ataka Prize, the Mitsubishi Jisho Prize, the Mayor of Toride Prize, the Acanthus Prize and the Geidai Clavier Prize. A laureate of the Ariadone Musica Prize during his studies, he also performs as a soloist with the Geidai Philharmonia Orchestra.