MB Civic

Britain’s most talented and prolific young composer. Prior was born in London to a British father and a Russian mother who descended from Constantin Stanislavski. Prior began composing at the age of eight and has written more than 40 works, including symphonies, concertos, two ballets, two operas, and a Requiem for the children of Beslan. At an early age, he began piano lessons. He later enrolled in the junior department of the Royal College of Music. At 13, he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory where, beginning in his third year, he studied composition with Boris Tishchenko and opera and symphonic conducting with Alexander Alexeev (a pupil of Hans Swarowsky). In 2009, at age 17, he graduated with Distinction two Masters-Degrees in Symphonic and Operatic Conducting, and in Composition from the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Prior has collaborated with many leading orchestras and ensembles, including The BBC Singers, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Opera Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, and the ensemble Endymion. Highlights include a performance of his Sonata for Cello and Piano at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and a symphonic poem, Stalin’s March, as part of the Arts Council-funded New Music Day with the City of London Sinfonia. Other performances include The Prince’s Feast with Prior conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of London at the Barbican Centre and the premiere of Svyatogor’s Quest by the Sitkovetsky Piano Trio at Wigmore Hall. In Autumn 2008, following performances in St. Petersburg, the Rossica Choir toured the UK, featuring Prior’s choral cycle Sounds of the Homeland and parts of his All Night Vigil.Now he’s bringing together some of the world’s greatest young musical talent to perform his new concerto. Alex travels to Miami at the invitation of renowned prodigy-hunter Giselle Brodsky, who runs the Miami International Piano Festival. Giselle has selected five of America’s most gifted young musicians, who have flown in from all corners of the States to audition for Alex. She though Alex was arrogant, crazy, choosing the wrong musicians, dictatorial, too young, too inexperienced. Among the children are two violinists: Simone, a 12-year-old Harry Potter fanatic, and Michael, a charismatic 13-year-old who hates practicing and would rather be playing basketball or dancing to hip hop. Two cellists are also in the running: 15-year-old Nathan, whose prodigious abilities were first realized when he was spotted air-conducting aged just three; and 16-year-old Oliver, whose family live in seclusion on an isolated island off Seattle and who has cello lessons by video-link over the internet. The fifth musician is Anna, a 12-year-old harpist who has been playing for just three years but whose phenomenal aptitude and passion for the instrument have fuelled her swift progression. Ida Haendel, the legendary violinist, who was herself a celebrated child prodigy, will assist Alex and Giselle in the selection process which culminates in a public recital in front of an audience of 500 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. But it is Alex alone who faces the difficult task of deciding which musicians to choose, before breaking the news to all the children. In the second programme, sixteen-year-old Alexander Prior goes to Shanghai in search of China’s most brilliant piano prodigies. In recent years, the Chinese have fallen in love with Western classical music, and with the piano in particular: the country now has 30 million piano students. With help from two piano professors at the Shanghai Conservatory, Alex meets and auditions four astonishing young pianists aged eight to 12. He then faces the difficult task of deciding which one to choose – and breaking the news to all of the children. The kid from China was about as cute as you could imagine. A little kid who’s fingers could just about reach. John, I don’t know too much about pianists and what it takes but I’ve got to tell you (and from what everyone in the program was saying, from the concert master to the top teachers in china) that the piece Alex had written for the piano was suited for a 30 year old man with long fingers and powerful shoulders! And this little kid pulled it off without a hitch-It was amazing. At the end of the concert he jumped off the bench and ran over to Alex and hugged him He also was the only one who cried when he had to go home. He didn’t speak any English at first and felt embarrassed because of it. But the other kids embraced him, played both musically and as kids with him and suddenly he was part of that wonderful dynamic-part of a small musical family all sharing a similar and wonderful experience. Well Alex chose the right ones because they then showed them rehearsing back in London, then going to the rehearsal for the first time the piece was played by an orchestra and then the performance