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Fiorentini scales the heights
06.04.09
Greencastle pianist
wins at Feis Ceoil
by Damian Dowds, Inishowen
Independent
GREENCASTLE pianist Nadene Fiorentini added to her
growing reputation when she won the Huban Cup at the
ESB Feis Ceoil in Dublin last week.
Twenty year old Fiorentini impressed judges with
pieces from Chopin and Debussy in last Thursday’s
competition in St Mary’s Church Hall in Dublin 4. By
virtue of her win Nadene will compete in Thursday
night’s Morris Grant Cup competition in the RDS
against the other piano soloist winners. The winner
of that competition earns a €2,500 bursary.
In the meantime there’s the small matter of further
competition tonight, Tuesday. First up is the solo
Nordell Cup followed by the Chamber Music Cup where
she will play in a trio with a clarinettist and a
cellist.
Nadene harbours ambitions of a career as a concert
pianist and is in the third year of a BA in Music
Performance at the Royal Irish Academy of Music,
under the tutelage of Dr John O’Conor, the
internationally renowned pianist, and Therese Fahy. |
“Working with someone
of the stature and calibre of John O’Conor is
amazing,” Fiorentini, a former student at Scoil
Eoghain in Moville and Carndonagh Community School
said last week.
Nadene took up the piano at the age of five and
achieved grade 8 by aged 14. Her first piano teacher
was her great aunt, Giovanna Fiorentini, before she
transferred to McGinley music academy in Derry.
This summer she will go to Aspen, Colorado, for an
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nine week programme
given by O’Conor. “It will give me the opportunity
to work on my repertoire and meet with other
musicians,” she said. “I really can’t wait for it.”
With 180 competitions, a myriad of cups and €60,000
in prizes, the Feis Ceoil, which started last Monday
week and continues until Friday, brings together
4,000 of Ireland’s best musicians for two weeks of
superlative competition. Fiorentini is no stranger
to winning at the Feis Ceoil, winning two cups in
2007 and claiming a runners up spot in the Huban Cup
last year.
Now in its 113th year, former winners at the Feis
Ceoil include the aforementioned O’Conor and the
renowned tenor Count John McCormack, while a certain
James Joyce won a bronze medal for his tenor solo in
1904. |
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