Pianist Arsha Kaviani
Music director Nader Abbassi will return to conduct the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme including Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto and the Dmitri Shostakovich Fifth Symphony tomorrow at the Katara Cultural Village Opera House. Young pianist Arsha Kaviani will solo in the Rachmaninoff and Saber Abdel Sattar of Egypt will play the kanoun in Abbassi’s composition, Dance of Peace.
Arsha Kaviani was born in Dubai in 1990 and started piano lessons at the age of six. After winning gold medals in regional competitions he won a scholarship to the prestigious Chethams School of Music in Manchester. In his first year there Kaviani won the Concerto Competition with Prokofiev’s 2nd Piano Concerto, which he also performed with Alexander Rahbari and the Istanbul Symphony Orchestra. Later that year he was asked to play the opening recital of Steinway & Sons Middle East in Dubai. He has also played solo and chamber music in Moscow, at St. John’s Smith Square London and at the Al Ain Classics Festival.
Saber Abdel Sattar has a vision that kanoun playing should not be imitative but creative depending on the free imagination, creativity, skills and individual personality of each player. Sattar studied at the Arab Music Institute and took part in the Oum Kolthoum Orchestra. He won first prize in the International Competition for the Kanoun hosted by the Arab League in Algeria. He has taken his music throughout Egypt and to Marseille Opera, Berlin Opera, Austria, Italy (Ravina Opera), Poland, Syria, Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco and the Gulf region.
In his conducting career Nader Abbassi benefits from his exceptionally wide professional experience as a singer, bassoonist and composer. In July 2011 Nader Abbassi was appointed Artistic and Musical Director of Katara Culture Foundation in Qatar. From 2009 to 2011 he was the first Music Director for the newly-formed Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2002 he has held the position of Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Cairo Opera Orchestra. Abbassi is also the artistic director of the Orchestre pour la Paix in Paris.
Kurt Meister, Executive Director of the Philharmonic, points out how the concert matches the mission of the orchestra and its parent, the Qatar Foundation. “As always our audience will hear music of the highest quality. The music will be conducted by an Egyptian conductor, who wrote some of the music.  They’ll hear a pianist from the GCC and a great master of the kanoun from Egypt. And they’ll hear two brilliant Russian masterpieces. We are bringing this region’s music-making to the world while we bring the world’s music to Qatar.”
The next concert for the Philharmonic will be November 26, when Korean Nanse Gum conducts Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and Brahms‘ First Symphony with Greek pianist George Lazaridis.