Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 things to know about 5 Piano Fantasy: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Holst

Five concert grand pianos and five virtuoso pianists from the UBC School of Music take to the stage in Inspired at the Chan performance

By Gail Johnson

Fergus Kwan.

Inspired at the Chan presents 5 Piano Fantasy: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Holst on November 26 at 3 pm at Chan Shun Concert Hall

THE MUSIC FROM movies such as Star Wars and Harry Potter is magnificent in itself; listening to some of each series’ songs—and other sweeping compositions—played live on five pianos takes things to another realm.

5 Piano Fantasy: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Holst is an upcoming concert that brings together a handful of top students from the UBC School of Music for an epic afternoon of impactful sound.

“This concert, which makes connections to the wider UBC campus and brings in the community, is the kind of inspiring programming we are excited to create at the Chan Centre,” Pat Carrabré, director of the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts and the UBC School of Music, says in a release. “The five students will get to show their remarkable talents, exemplifying the standard of excellence that we provide at the School of Music. We are proud to give them this opportunity to perform in our beautiful hall, which will be just one of their many public performances in the long careers ahead of them.”

Here’s all you need to know about the show.

#1

The five prolific musicians include undergraduate student Fergus Kwan, a composer, writer, and concert pianist who is studying piano performance and composition with Corey Hamm and Jennifer Butler respectively and who has won awards such as Best Performance of a Work by Chopin by The Vancouver Chopin Society; and Best Performance of Jordan Nobles’s The Architect’s Dream by the Architecture of Music Competition, among others. Hamilton Lau, who is also studying with Hamm, won the UBC Concerto Competition in 2022, the Canadian Music Competition in 2021 and 2019, and the Performing Arts BC Provincial Festival in 2022 and 2018. Christine Ngai earned a master of music from the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and is a doctoral student studying with David Fung. Vivienne Thamrin has received numerous honours at national and international competitions, including Gold Prize at the WPTA Singapore International Piano Competition, and first prizes at the 2020 Ananda Sukarlan Award, Indonesia National Piano Competition, and the 2016 Blüthner National Piano Competition. Master’s student Daniel Tong, who is studying with Mark Anderson as his primary mentor and Rena Sharon for chamber music studies, has received finalist standings at the UBC Silverman Piano Competition in 2020 as well as the Canadian Music Competition. The performance is one hour with no intermission.

#2

Prior to the concert, there’s a demonstration of the Chan Centre’s Steinway Spirio from 2:15 to 2:45 pm. The instrument is a high-resolution player piano capable of live performance and playback. The pianists will play live alongside recordings of themselves, the Spirio’s performance virtually indistinguishable from the live version.

#3

“Jedi Steps and Finale” from Star Wars is one title on the program, the piece by John Williams and arranged by Thomas Kobialka featuring all five pianists. The nine-minute track is from the dramatic final scene in Star Wars: The Force Awakens when Rey finds Luke Skywalker on the remote planet of Ahch-To. The island he’s settled on is Skellig Michael in Ireland, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

#4

Hamilton Lau.

Each artist will perform solo. Tong will play Nikolai Medtner’s Fairy Tale, Op. 51 No. 2; Ngai offers Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 4 in C minor, Op. 29, 1st movement; Kwan will perform Franz Liszt’s “Un Sospiro” from 3 Études de concert, S. 144; Thamrin plays Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in D Major, Op. 23 No. 4; and Lau will perform perform the third movement of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83.

#5

All of the artists will join for Gustav Holst’s “Jupiter” from The Planets for 5 Pianos arranged by Greg Anderson and John Williams’s Harry Potter for 5 Pianos arranged by Jarrod Radnich and Soojung Jeon.

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