Ronan Apcar is a pianist and composer with a reputation of versatility, edge, and tenacity. His love for music across many styles – jazz to the avant-garde, contemporary art music to alt-rock and pop – translates into his open-minded, exciting, and unique work as a musician. Described as "a talent beyond his age" (Limelight Magazine), Ronan is best known for bold programming with contemporary classical and modern art music and has a passion for challenging norms and breaking stereotypes of what a piano looks and sounds like in concert.
While currently studying at the Australian National Academy of Music, Ronan performs in an eclectic mix of concerts and festivals in both intimate and large-scale venues across Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and regional NSW and Victoria, and is just at home as a guest soloist with an orchestra as he is improvising as part of a multimedia DJ set. Large-scale appearances include the Canberra International Music Festival and the Australian Youth Orchestra and as soloist with orchestras including the Melbourne Youth Orchestra and Penrith Symphony Orchestra.
A nominee for the prestigious Freedman Fellowship and current recipient of the ANU Love Supreme Grant fellowship, Ronan is becoming known for his thoughtful, innovative, and unconventional programming and has self-presented numerous gigs ranging from genre-defying cabaret to experimental new music concerts, free improvisations in art galleries to theatre-music fusion shows in cafés. He also regularly collaborates with artists to present independent grassroots projects as well as larger companies like National Opera, Luminescence Chamber Singers, and Moorambilla Voices, who he has performed and recorded with at the Sydney Opera House.
Ronan is a fierce advocate for Australian music. His debut album Dulcie Holland Crescent – a collection of forgotten works by Dulcie Holland – is an ABC Classic featured album, and soon after premiered Holland’s Piano Concertino with Leonard Weiss and Canberra Sinfonia for which he was awarded a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award.
Program:
Johannes BRAHMS Fantasies, Op. 116, No. 4
Leo ORNSTEIN Suicide in an Airplane
Johannes BRAHMS Fantasies, Op. 116, No.5
Gerard BROPHY Abraço
Johannes BRAHMS Fantasies, Op. 116, No. 6
Frederic RZEWSKI Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
Johannes BRAHMS Fantasies, Op. 116, No. 7
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