In partnership with Stretto Piano Concerts, piano manufacturer Klavins Piano will present virtuoso Aurelia Shimkus in an exciting program!
This past year, Klavins released its newest piano, the Una Corda Stretto, the latest model of its Una Corda family. Inspired by pianist and entrepreneur Hannah Reimann, Klavins decided to honor the widespread need for pianos with narrower keys, for artists with smaller hands and millions of children who would appreciate this too.
The Una Corda Stretto comes with a 5.8 inch (147 mm) octave width, versus the traditional pianos’ 6.5 inch (165 mm) octave span. (Picture shows the Una Corda 64 EL, the Stretto version essentially looks the same). The Una Corda Stretto model has narrower strings / action scaling too, not just a narrower keyboard, the keys remain straight, which significantly fosters an optimal touch control and repetition speed.
Program:
A. Soler: Sonata in C minor no. 20
K. Debussy: Arabesque in E major no. 1
P. Vaks: White landscape
JS Bach: Italian Concerto
Intermision
F. Glass: Mad Rush
J. Tiersen: Amelia's waltz
F. Chopin: Waltz op. 34 no. 2 and waltz op. 64 no. 1
S. Prokofiev: Sonata no. 4 Op. 29 in C minor
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In 2016, Aurelia Shimkus [Aurēlija Šimkus] received the prestigious German music prize "Echo Klassik" in the category Best Young Artist of The Year. She has been awarded with a scholarship by such world renowned institutions as the Orpheum Stiftung in Zürich and the Mozart-Gesellschaft Dortmund.
Since that time she has performed as a soloist together with the English Chamber Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Latvia, the Kaunas Philharmonic Orchestra, the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra, the Dortmund Philharmonic, the German State Philharmonic Rhineland-Palatinate and others. She has been invited to numerous music festivals and concert series, e.g. to the Interlaken Classics, the Next Generation Festival in Bad Ragaz, the Puplinge Classique, the Kissinger Sommer, the Kurt Weill Festival, the Schumann Festival in Bonn and the Meister von Morgen concerts in Herdecke and others.
Aurelia has performed in such concert halls like the Tonhalle Zürich, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Stadthalle Bayreuth, Rheingoldhalle Mainz and many others.
Aurelia Shimkus first perfected her piano playing at the Emīls Dārziņš Music School in Riga with Prof. Sergejs Osokins. Since 2017 she has been studying piano at the Cologne University of Music and Dance with Claudio Martínez-Mehner and in Sweden with Prof. Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist. She has participated in various courses and masterclasses with renowned pianists and piano teachers such as Gabriela Montero, Milana Chernyavska, Dominique Merlet, Bernd Goetzke, Pavel Gililov, Peter Jablonski and others. Currently Aurelia is part of the Piano Academy Incontri con il Maestro in Imola, Italy where her mentors are Igor Roma and Ingrid Fliter.