Award Winning Pianist Tours Northern Rivers and New England.
Image: Israel Rivera
Hailed as “a born communicator” (The Australian), award-winning pianist, Alex Raineri has toured extensively both nationally and internationally. With a touring profile in 2024 that includes performances throughout the USA, UK, Ireland, Finland, and the Netherlands, Alex will include NSW’s Northern Rivers and New England regions this November.
Supporting this tour is Music in the Regions, who, across their three years of operations have made a mark on regional NSW, successfully touring world class classical music from Nundle to Deniliquin with this tour taking the organisation its furthest north yet. Touring to Lismore, Grafton, Armidale, Tenterfield, and Glen Innes, this tour is comprised of entirely new locations for Music in the Regions, furthering their mission to create greater cultural opportunities close to home for the 3 million people living outside the metropolitan.
Music in the Regions General Manager and Producer, Marika Nordquist, said: “It’s always a thrill to head into new regions and I’m much looking forward to meeting our community partners. This tour has several other exciting firsts for Music in the Regions that I’m delighted to share with the audiences: first time touring a solo artist and featuring the piano, and of course, performances of fresh works from some of Australia’s leading contemporary composers!”
A passionate exponent and commissioner of contemporary music, Raineri’s extensive career has seen him commission over 70 works and give over 130 premieres to date. Fairytales is no exception with 4 of the 5 works featured commissioned by Raineri.
Weaving tales of passion, loss, and beauty, Fairytales showcases works by contemporary Australian composers John Rotar, Michael Bakrnčev, Katy Abbott, and Ian Whitney, culminating in Melody Eötvös’ Piano Sonata No. 2, based on a lesser-known Hans Christian Andersen tale, ‘A Story from the Sand Dunes’.
Alex Raineri said: “I am so excited to be touring with Music in the Regions. Australia is such a vast and incredible country, and musicians so often get stuck in the cities. I can’t wait to bring this collection of captivating Homegrown Aussie works to many regional communities.
With the exception of Katy Abbott’s cascading beautiful work ‘Glisten’, all of the featured compositions were commissioned by myself. It is exciting to share this incredible Australian music, but equally exciting for me to share work which I am so closely tethered to, having played a pivotal role in the development and creation of these new works.
I hope that audiences will revel in the wonder and beauty of these musical works, and be captivated by the incredible skill and poetic sentiment of Australia’s contemporary composers.”
Alex Raineri will perform Fairytales at:
LISMORE: 4pm, Saturday 2 November at, and in partnership with Northern Rivers Conservatorium.
GRAFTON: 3pm, Sunday 3 November at Grafton Salvation Army Hall, in partnership with Clarence Valley Conservatorium.
ARMIDALE: 7:30pm, Wednesday 6 November at, and in partnership with The Armidale Playhouse, supported by the New England Conservatorium of Music.
TENTERFIELD: 7pm, Friday 8 November at Sir Henry Parkes Memorial School of Arts, in partnership with the Tenterfield Players Inc.
GLEN INNES: 3pm, Saturday 9 November at the Chapel Theatre in partnership with Glen Innes Arts Council.