Maria Raspopova PROKOFIEV Visions Fugitives

Throughout the year Maria Raspopova largely plays chamber music with Omega Ensemble. As well as being their resident pianist she is also the Co-Artistic Director which, besides playing music, involves planning repertoire, concerts, administration and a number of other related duties.  While she loves playing chamber music she also loves appearing as a solo pianist.

I discovered Visions Fugitives when I was very young, around the age of 12 or 13. Prokofiev has always held a place in my playing life for several reasons. Firstly, because he was revered in Russia and he was my piano teacher's favourite composer so I was exposed to his music quite a lot.

I always felt connected to his music in a way that I haven’t with other music. I can’t really explain why but I think it has something to do with the purity and the clarity of his writing, especially for the piano. His music, in many ways, is like Mozart. It is simple, pure and profoundly beautiful.

I’m doing the entire set of Visions Fugitives which contains 20 short works. Each work is quite short, and each is very unique with their own character. As a whole these little vignettes represent Prokofiev fully as a composer and I am really excited to present these works to you. (Maria Raspopova)