Young Polish Pianist Mateusz Borowiak to Perform World Premiere of Six Sonatas by Louis Pelosi

British-Polish pianist Mateusz Borowiak makes his US debut in this three-concert series held at Kaufman Music Center's Merkin Concert Hall, featuring the world premiere of composer Louis Pelosi's first set of piano sonatas. Performances will take place on Sunday, November 5, Wednesday, November 8, and Sunday, November 12, all at 8:00 pm. The program juxtaposes Pelosi's modern works with études written by famous Romantic composers, including Chopin, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff. The series as a whole presents a rich palette of human sentiments portrayed through technical strength and emotive virtuosity. The complete program follows:

Merkin Concert Hall at the Kaufman Music Center
129 W 67th Street
New York, NY 10036

Sunday, November 5, 2017, 8:00 PM

Pelosi                           Sonata no. 4 in B
Chopin                          Études op. 10
—Interval—
Chopin                          Études op. 25
Pelosi                           Sonata no. 6 in C#/Db

Wednesday, November 8, 2017, 8:00 PM

Pelosi                           Sonata no. 5 in C
Pelosi                           Sonata no. 1 in Ab/G#
—Interval—
Debussy                       Douze Études

Sunday, November 12, 2017, 8:00 PM

Pelosi                           Sonata no. 2 in A
Pelosi                           Sonata no. 3 in Bb
—Interval—
Rachmaninoff              Études-Tableaux op. 39

Tickets will be available for purchase from $15 to $30 at www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org.

Young Polish pianist Mateusz Borowiak has already attracted international attention for his serious musicianship and technique, bringing a thoughtful integrity and expression to each piece in his repertoire from Bach to Barber. His recent debut at London’s Wigmore Hall pleased critics, with Robert Beattie of Seen and Heard International stating, “Borowiak has all the qualities of the consummate musician and virtuoso and is clearly destined for great things.”

During the 2017-18 season, Mr. Borowiak will perform a formidable three-recital series at Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Concert Hall, where he will premiere six sonatas by American composer Louis Pelosi, perform the complete Etudes, Op. 10 and 25 by Chopin, Debussy’s Douze Etudes and Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39.

Mateusz Borowiak is a laureate of international piano competitions including Queen Elisabeth (Brussels), Gawon International Music Society (Seoul), Maria Canals (Barcelona), Rina Sala Gallo (Monza), Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe, as well as the Harriet Cohen Memorial Award and the Royal Over-Seas League competitions in London. He graduated with distinction from Cambridge University and the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice where he studied under Professor Andrzej Jasin´ski.

He has performed as soloist in venues such as Barbican Hall (London), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Salle Cortot (Paris), Gasteig (Munich), Wigmore Hall (London), Philharmonic Hall (St Petersburg), Zentrum Paul Klee (Bern), Flagey (Brussels), L'Auditori (Barcelona), Albert Long Hall (Istanbul), Adán Martín Auditorio (Tenerife), Auditorio Nacional de Musica (Madrid), Liszt Hall (Budapest), Sejong Arts Center (Seoul), Concertgebouw (Brugges), L'Auditori Manuel de Falla (Granada), National Centre for Performing Arts (Beijing) and Shanghai Symphony Hall; at festivals including St Petersburg International Winter Festival Arts Square, Oestbelgien Festival, Cambridge Festival, Rubinstein Piano Festival, Festival Isaac Albeniz de Camprodon, International Chopin Festival in Duszniki, Polish Pianist Festivals in Slupsk and the Royal Cracow Piano Festival, as well as in Czechia, Latvia, Slovakia, Ukraine and the US.

He has performed with Royal Philharmonic, St Petersburg Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, Orchestre National de Belgique, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfònica del Vallès, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Silesian Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, Sinfonietta Cracovia, London Octave, Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfònica de Tenerife, Bialystok, Cze?stochowa, Lódz, Jelenia Góra and Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestras, Silesian Philharmonic, Pomeranian Philharmonic, Sinfonia Baltica, and Silesian String Quartet. Conductors he has worked with include Marin Alsop, Massimiliano Caldi, Andrey Boreyko, Edo de Waart, Hans Graf, Michal Klauza, Alan Buribayev, Tomasz Bugaj, Joseph Swensen, Tadeusz Strugala, Aleksander Liebreich and Miroslaw Jacek Blaszczyk.

His concerts have been broadcast on national and local television and radio in Poland, Spain, the UK, France, Sweden, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, New Zealand and the US. His first CD of Louis Pelosi's Thirteen Preludes and Fugues was released by KASP Records, New York in October 2012. CD releases in 2014 included ‘Mateusz Borowiak Live at the Queen Elisabeth Competition 2013' and 15 keyboard sonatas by Antonio Soler, by Naxos Records.

Louis Pelosi is a New York-based composer dedicated to a tonal and contrapuntal style of composing. This November Louis Pelosi will premiere his first six piano sonatas to be performed in Merkin Concert Hall by Polish pianist Mateusz Borowiak in his American concert debut.

Pelosi’s compositions affirm the conviction that the most substantial music speaks a contrapuntal language, and there is an indistinguishable difference between intellectual satisfaction and emotive power. The crux of his compositions surrounds central tone, “one above all others as point of departure and destination, that most primitive and durable of sonic obsessions” (Pelosi, 2016). From 1997-2000 he created his first mature composition, String Quartet No. 1. In 2016 Pelosi published a CD with pianist Mateusz Borowiak entitled 13 Preludes and Fugues, With Epilogue. For Piano. The CD is dedicated to Pelosi’s late wife and features his compositions written from 2000-2003. On this recording, Lynn René Bayley of Fanfare Magazine notes:

"One could easily go on at considerable length, and in considerable detail, over the remarkable quality of this score, but in the end, the listening experience says far more than words can. Pianist Mateusz Borowiak, so far as I can judge, is an intelligent and sensitive artist with a good feel for this music and its unusual style. As with the triptych reviewed above, I recommend this disc very highly." —Fanfare Magazine, 2016

Louis Pelosi studied at the University of Notre Dame, the Hartt College of Music with Arnold Franchetti, and the Manhattan School of Music with Charles Wuorinen. His works were performed at Merkin Concert Hall in 1986, 1997, and 2004 involving various assemblages of solo and chamber musicians.