Norwegian pianist Havard Gimse to give free concert Dec. 1
MIDDLEBURY, Vt.?Acclaimed Norwegian pianist Håvard Gimse will treat a Middlebury audience to a free performance at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Dec. 1, in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall on the Middlebury College campus. Gimse’s program will include selections by Geirr Tveitt, Jean Sibelius, Edvard Grieg and Sergei Prokofiev.
Upon recently adding Gimse’s date to the fall concert schedule, Middlebury College Performing Arts Series Director Paul Nelson said, “Very musical friends of ours heard Håvard Gimse perform at the Riesor Festival in Norway last summer and raved about his playing.”
Indeed, Gimse’s talent carries him through an ambitious concert, festival, chamber music and recital schedule as well as a steady recording pace. As a recitalist, he has performed around the world, recently at London’s Wigmore Hall Young Masters Series. Gimse has toured Europe, North America and Japan, performing with a host of conductors and orchestras including the Oslo Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, the Belgian National Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Finnish Radio Symphony.
His international festival engagements include the Edinburgh Festival, the Bath Festival, the Bergen International Festival, the Kuhmo Festival and the Cervantino Festival in Mexico. Since 1997, Gimse has worked as assistant program manager of the Oslo Chamber Music Festival.
In 1996 Gimse won the prestigious Grieg Prize and in 1995 won the Steinway Prize. Gimse has made a variety of recordings on the NAIM, Naxos, Sony, Simax and Chandos labels. His work has been selected as an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, CD Review, BBC Music Magazine, and Phono Forum.
A reviewer for Independent London bestowed this praise on Gimse following a Wigmore Hall performance earlier this year, “Rarely is a pianist so at ease as Håvard Gimse. The mechanics of playing seemed to come naturally, so that he could concentrate on listening to himself.” Gramophone called Gimse’s 2002 recording of Grieg’s works a memorable new release, “The expressive purity and musical integrity he exudes make this disc deeply fulfilling.”
The performance is sponsored by two Middlebury College organizations?the Performing Arts Series and Brainerd Commons.
The Middlebury College Center for the Arts is on South Main Street (Route 30). For information, call the College Box Office at 802-443-6433 or visit online at www.middlebury.edu/arts/.
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