Meet two winners from the super final of the Young Norwegian Musician of the Year competition; the flautist Tanja Helen Kvitnes from Rana and the pianist Tony Lee from Sydney and Oslo in a classical music diptych.
Tanja Helen Kvitnes will perform music from different epochs and contrasting styles. She will play the exquisite ”Le merle noir” or ”Blackbird” for flute and piano by Olivier Messiaen. At five minutes it is nearly the shortest composition by Messiaen and is based on birdsong. She will also present highly virtuosic and elegant music from the late classical period by Friedrich Kuhlau. The Grosse Sonata blends both elegance and drama. To conclude she will perform Gabriel Faure´s De Concours, a short elegiac and atmospheric work so redolent of French repertoire.
The pianist Tony Lee presents Beethoven´s sonate ”Quasi una fantasia” and the passion and mystery of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. Tony Lee is Artist in Residence at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Belgium under the direction of Maria-João Pires. Lee hails originally from Sydney and is regarded as a highly promising pianist in his homeland and is presently a Masters student at the Barratt Due Institute in Oslo. He has performed with numerous orchestras including the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Samara Philharmonic and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Lee has not only reached the heights of the super final in Oslo. He was won more than ten national and international competitions including the Lev Vlassenko piano competition, Louise Henriette International Piano Competition and Scriabin International Piano Competition in Paris.
Tanja Helene Kvitnes is presently completing her Masters at the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo. She has already been selected for a temporary position with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and has been offered a place at the Royal College of Music in London.
The Norwegian Young Musician of the Year is coordinated by the Norwegian Arts Council, Norsk Musikkorps Forbund and Musikkpedagogene Norge annually at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. Eight regional competitions take place before selection is made for the final national rounds in Oslo.