Top international pianist includes Offaly in national tour

AN internationally acclaimed pianist will be performing in the Esker Arts Centre in Tullamore on Tuesday, March 11 next.

Yukine Kuroki, who has been described by the Music Network as an “incredibly gifted Japanese pianist” has included Tullamore in a national tour of nine venues around Ireland next month.

The Music Network, Ireland’s national music touring and development organisation, which was founded by the Arts Council in 1986 says that Kuroki has conquered the hearts of many in recent years.

She won both the Liszt Utrecht Competition and Dublin International Piano Competition in 2022, as well as being awarded third prize at the prestigious Rubinstein Competition in 2023.

The Network says her mastery of the instrument prompted leading Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska to describe her as ‘a true poet at the piano, who can make you cry with a single note.’

Kuroki started playing the piano at the age of three and first performed with an orchestra when she was seven years old.

Since then she has been performing all over the world, including sold-out debuts with Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo New City Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra and Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra.

The 2024/2025 season sees Kuroki make debuts at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Germany’s Munich Gasteig and Villa Wahnfried, Bayreuth, Kuhmo Hall in South Korea and at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival.

Kuroki will also make a triumphant return to the National Concert Hall, Dublin as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, and perform a solo recital at Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.

Her recordings Christmas with Yukine and Live at Liszt Utrecht can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and other streaming platforms.

Kuroki has recently completed a master’s programme at Showa Graduate School of Music in Tokyo under Fumiko Eguchi.

She has won press plaudits from far and wide. The Irish Times praised her ‘… staggering account of the teenage Shostakovich’s brutalist Sonata No. 1’; BBC Music Magazine commented that she ‘wowed the international jury with her rendition of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy’ and de Volkskrant said that ‘Kuroki combines elegance with extraordinary technical capacities, a true Lisztian performer in every possible way'.

The tour kicks off in Sligo and continues to Cork, Tullamore, Dublin, Newry, Waterford, Westmeath and Kilkenny.

The programme will include Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and a selection of Transcendental Études by Lizst, as well as music by Rachmaninoff, Kapustin, and Tokuyama. Kuroki will also perform Fantasia on 'Port na bPúcaí' by Dr Fergus Johnston which was specially commissioned by Music Network for the tour.