Welcome by
MARIA RADUTU

How do two sides have to relate to each other in order to form a harmonious unit? Do they merge or complement each other? As fundamentally different as these variants may be, they can both be right - and that's a good thing. In music that allows us to feel the full range of human emotions, there is no room for searching for a common denominator: any compromise would only flatten the lows and highs. Yet it is precisely these extremes and the enormous range in between that guarantee the experience of art on an existential level.

In the second season of KEYS TO HEAVEN PIANO FESTIVAL, this is exactly what you, dear audience, will experience: different musical styles that, combined with classical piano music, complement each other stylistically and merge in emotion. How does this work? With artists who are inimitable in their own style and follow their different paths out of pure musical conviction. Whether from pop, soul, jazz, modern classical music or as singer-songwriters, all the artists who will perform at Esterházy Palace and the rooftop bar of Hotel Galántha in 2025 will take music to the extreme by digging deep emotionally. This range of genres can reflect, complement and also merge with the unique repertoire of the classical piano.

 

The devotion of Lylit, who wears her soul on her sleeve, drills into our hearts, Frank Dupree is the world's most virtuosic crossover artist between jazz and classical music, Beatrice Berrut speaks to all generations with her "Abracadabra", Phoebe Violet makes us feel the strength of fragility and with the popular The Erlkings we experience Haydn anew. The Klangkollektiv carries Viennese classical music in its DNA - and as a soloist in two piano concertos, I can add modernism as a counterpart: as something completely different, but essentially the same.

 

I look forward to our weekend TOGETHER, dear audience, in our colourful Keys-to-Heaven socks, united by a musical firework display.