Concert near Tavira welcomes three student stars

 The Algarve History Association will celebrate its annual Student Concert on Sunday, June 5 at Quintinha da Música, near Tavira, at 5pm.

This year, the association welcomes three students from the Conservatório Regional do Algarve Maria Campina in Faro.

The programme opens with 11-year-old Richard Rait, a grade four student of Professora Oxana Anikeeva. Richard enrolled at a piano school in Switzerland at the age of eight and has won prizes in the Canadian International Competition (2020), the French International Online Competition (2021) and the Sebastião Leiria Competition in Tavira (2022). Richard will play pieces by Bach, Chopin, Liszt and Schumann.

After the interval, 12-year-old Yi Rong Chen (known as Margarida) presents works by Haydn, Costa and Glière. Now at grade three, Margarida has studied at the Conservatório for two years with Professora Irene Ainstein and has been a prize-winner at the Santa Cecília International Competition in Porto (in 2021) and also at this year’s Sebastião Leiria Competition in Tavira. She has also attended the masterclass run by Professor Álvaro Teixeira Lopes.

The final student star will be 16-year-old Angélica Ryzhak, whom AHA welcomes back since she has performed at the previous years’ Student Concerts sponsored by the association. She is a seventh-grade student of Professora Oxana Anikeeva, and has won prizes in Faro, Tavira, Oeiras, and Imola, Turkey. She has attended the masterclasses of Marlies van Gent and Maria Nemtsova. She plays works by Haydn, Brandão and Titov.

It is the association’s custom to make a donation to the Conservatório for use in sponsoring disadvantaged students, for example enabling youngsters to attend concerts which they might otherwise miss.

Tickets, at €20 including snacks and drinks during the interval, are available from Lynne Booker by email at [email protected]