Debut Mélodie Zhao

Born in Gruyères in 1994, she is Swiss and has Chinese roots. But her mother tongue is music, says pianist Mélodie Zhao. No wonder, as she received her first piano lessons at the age of two and can’t remember a single day in her life when she didn’t play her instrument. But the student of Pascal Devoyon and Paul Badura-Skoda is more than just a keyboard virtuoso. She has also been studying composition since the age of 15 and has produced a rich oeuvre ranging from solo pieces to orchestral works, including an Ode to Peace, which was premiered by the DSO Berlin in 2022. And she is also training as a conductor. It is therefore only natural that she will introduce herself as both a pianist and a composer at her debut. Zhao will open the program with Mozart, whose Jenamy Concerto she has just recorded. She will also play Liszt’s Sonata in B minor and her own Paganini Fantasy, following in the footsteps of the great virtuosos. And with her arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, she will indulge her penchant for jazzy classical music.