The Independent (UK)’s 5 star review of violinist Emily Sun performing in Messiaen’s Quator pour la fin du temps at St Paul’s Cathedral, London:
“… St Paul’s Cathedral – for an extraordinary event. Here the physical audience of 300 people (plus streamed thousands) has come to hear Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps – Quartet for the End of Time. And the symbolism of that choice of repertoire feels just right for our own perilous moment in history. Messiaen composed it while in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, and had to use the available musicians, odd though his line-up sounds: violin, cello, clarinet, and a battered old piano which he would play himself. They premiered it in the freezing cold of January 1941, for an audience of 400 fellow-prisoners and Nazi guards. … The final tableau, with the violin reaching heavenwards while the piano gently underpins it, leaves us all in a long, stunned silence. … This work may be frequently played, but it can never have sounded as transcendental as this.” (5 stars)
– Michael Church, The Independent (October 2020)
A multi-international prize winner, Emily was awarded the 2018 ABC Young Performer of the Year (Australia), and the 2016 UK Royal Overseas League Commonwealth Musician of the Year. She has performed recitals in some of the world’s major concert venues including Wigmore Hall London, Bridgewater Hall Manchester, Tchaikovsky Great Hall Moscow, Auditorium du Louvre Paris, and at Buckingham Palace alongside Maxim Vengerov in Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, in the presence of HRH Prince of Wales.
Emily plays a 1760 Nicolo Gagliano violin, kindly loaned to her through the Beare’s International Violin Society.
Read more about Emily here or watch her ABC Classic Duet with pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska: https://www.facebook.com/abc.classic/videos/560904497892181/
Upcoming concerts: Sydney Festival 2021 – Salon Series
Tuesday 12 January, 12pm: French Favourites, with pianist Andrea Lam – tickets here
Wednesday 13 January, 12pm: Parisian Salon, with pianist Andrea Lam – tickets here