YOUNG Australian pianist Hoang Pham will perform Tchaikovsky’s first and most famous piano concerto. Pham was named Australia’s Young Performer of the Year in 2013 by Symphony Australia, and has performed as a soloist with the Melbourne, Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, as well as giving numerous recitals abroad.

Hoang says, “For many years I’ve been looking for an opportunity to collaborate with Nicholas Milton, and this Tchaikovsky concerto is one of my favourites – there’s so much colour and romance to it, no need to hold back!” says Pham, who was born in Vietnam but moved to Australia at an early age.”

Milton is equally excited about performing with such a bright young star. “Hoang has made an exceptional reputation for himself since winning the YPA and I knew as soon as I heard him play that I wanted to invite him to work with the CSO,” the conductor says. “The energy young soloists perform with always resonates so obviously through the orchestra.”

“He won Australia’s most prestigious performers’ prize with his rendition of this concerto – it is a fiendishly difficult work, requiring enormous stamina and a ferocious command of thundering octaves that occur in the first movement, and I have rarely heard anyone embrace the concerto’s difficulties with as much courage and panache as this young Australian.”

CSO Llewellyn Series 15.2: TCHAIKOVSKY, 6 & 7 May, 7.30pm, Llewellyn Hall, ANU, Tickets from $53. Visit www.cso.org.au for more information.

Photo by Andrew Lee