Helene Grimaud Returning to Walt Disney Concert Hall, 4/14

Renowned pianist Hélène Grimaud returns to the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage, Tuesday, April 14, at 8 pm. The performance is the conclusion of the LA Phil's 2014/15 Colburn Celebrity Recitals series.

The first half of Grimaud's program explores the expressive possibilities of water music though a sampling of colorful, decorative, atmospheric and poetic selections: Berio's Wasserklavier, Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II, Fauré's Barcarolle No. 5, Ravel's Jeux d'eau, Albéniz' Almería (from Iberia), Liszt's Les Jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este, Janá?ek's In the mists 1, and Debussy's La cathédrale engloutie. These pieces will appear on a Grimaud CD slated for release later this year. The second half of the program showcases Brahms' Second Sonata.

Hélène Grimaud is not just a deeply passionate and committed musical artist whose pianistic accomplishments play a central role in her life. She is a woman with multiple talents that extend far beyond the instrument she plays with such poetic expression and peerless technical control. The French artist has established herself as a committed wildlife conservationist, a compassionate human rights activist and an author of three critically acclaimed books. Despite her divided dedication to these multiple passions, it is through Grimaud's thoughtful and tenderly expressive music-making that she most deeply touches the emotions of audiences. Throughout this season, she performs her new recital program inspired by 'water' in the U.S., Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, UK and France. Late last year she made her debut at the Park Avenue Armory performing her recital program as part of a large scale installation created by the artist Douglas Gordon - tears become...streams become... Her orchestral engagements include her return to the Berlin Philharmonic with Valery Gergiev, Orchestre national de Lyon with Leonard Slatkin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2002, her album prior to her 2013 Brahms concertos was Duo, a collaboration with cellist Sol Gabetta, which won the 2013 ECHO Award for "chamber recording of the year." The album's repertoire originated as an inspired recreation of a concert they gave at the 2011 Gstaad Festival and which the Berner Zeitung described at the time as "breathtaking" while BBC Music Magazine commented that ". . . in the grand first movement [of Brahms' Cello Sonata No. 1] Hélène Grimaud produces a context of almost orchestral depth and spaciousness into which Gabetta projects her eloquently refined lines."