"Dear Tessa, 
It was lovely to hear the Bach on Loose Ends, and thank you for playing it so beautifully."

Ned Sherrin

tessauys@aol.com

TESSA UYS

Tessa's Picture Gallery

Tessa's Piano - the story continues

Wigmore Hall Concert - July 20 2008

 

Biography Broadcasts Concertos CDs with
sound
New Contacts

 

BIOGRAPHY
The distinguished concert pianist, Tessa Uys, was born in Cape Town and made her concert debut, aged 13, with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra.  Winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Gordon Green, she was the recipient there of the MacFarren Medal.  Two periods of intensive study followed: the first under Maria Curcio and the second at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.  Returning to England, she won the Royal Overseas League Competition and subsequently took up permanent residence in London, where she still lives.
During the past decades, Tessa Uys has established for herself an impressive reputation, both as a concert performer and as a broadcasting artiste, performing at many of the major concert venues in the world.  She has built up an extensive repertoire, including concertos ranging from Bach to Brahms, Chopin to de Falla and Rachmaninov to Barber.  Her solo piano recital repertoire is formidable, embracing the music and styles of all periods.  Tessa Uys has become particularly noted for her interpretations of Schumann and Bach.  Among her recordings for BBC Radio 3, she made the first broadcast recording of the 'seldom heard' Godowsky transcriptions of Twelve Schubert songs.  More recently, to mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death in the year 2000, she recorded the Goldberg Variations released as a double CD by GSE Claremont Records, and subsequently toured this virtuoso work both in Britain and abroad, to great acclaim.
Tessa Uys has played under such distinguished conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Walter Susskind, Janos Furst, Louis Fremaux and Nicholas Kraemer.  She has also had the unusual privilege of working with the film producer, John Schlesinger in his film, 'Madame Sousatzka'.  In 1994, she was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.
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BROADCASTS
Live: Concert Hall, Portland Place Schumann
Schumann: Arabeske / Waldszenen
Studio Recording: Maida Vale Scarlatti
Beethoven
Scarlatti: 6 Sonatas / Beethoven: Variations Op. 191
Studio Recording: Cardiff / BBC Welsh SO Mozart 
Mozart: Concerto in G major, K.453
Studio Recording: Concert Hall, Portland Place McCabe
Busoni
McCabe: Variations Op. 22 / Busoni: Carmen Chamber Fantasy
Studio Recording: Concert Hall, Portland Place Beethoven
Schubert-Godowsky
Beethoven: Variations on Rule Britannia / Schubert/Godowsky: 6 Song Transcriptions
Studio Recording: Cardiff / BBC Welsh SO Mozart
Mozart: Concerto in C major, K.467
Live: Brandon Hill, Bristol Scarlatti 
Beethoven
Schumann
Scarlatti: 3 Sonatas / Beethoven: Variations on "Ruins of Athens" Op. 96 / Schumann: Fantasiestucke Op. 12
Studio Recording: Cardiff / BBC Welsh SO Mozart
Mozart: Concerto in Bflat major, K.595
Studio Recording: Concert Hall, Portland Place Stravinsky
Janacek
Bartok
Stravinsky: Sonata 1924 / Janacek: Sonata 1 (1905) / Bartok: Sonata
Studio Recording: Concert Hall, Portland Place Mendelssohn
Schumann
Mendelssohn: Variations Serieuses, Op. 54 / Schumann: Humoreske, Op. 20
Studio Recording: Cardiff / BBC Welsh SO Scriabin
Scriabin: Concerto in Fsharp minor
Live Lunch-time Recital: Concert Hall, Portland Place Bach
Schubert
Rachmaninov
Bach: English Suite in A minor / Schubert: Sonata in A major, D.664 / Rachmaninov: Suite from the Partita in E for Violin
Studio Recording: Concert Hall, Portland Place Weber
Schumann
Schubert-Liszt
Weber: Rondo Brillante, Op. 62 / Schumann: Phantasie, Op. 17 / Schubert / Liszt: Sei mir gegrusst / Widmung
Studio Recording: Concert Hall, Portland Place Scarlatti 
Schumann
Debussy
Scarlatti: 3 Sonatas / Schumann: Kinderszenen, Op. 15 / Debussy: Suite, Children's Corner
Cardiff / BBC Welsh SO Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn: Concerto in G minor
Studio Recording: Concert Hall, Portland Place Bach
Bach: The Goldberg Variations
Studio Recording: Maida Vale Mozart 
Schubert
Beethoven
Mozart: Adagio in B minor, K.540 / Schubert: 3 Letzte Klavierstucke / Beethoven: Eroica Variations
Studio Recording: Maida Vale Mozart 
Janacek
Liszt 
Rachmaninov
Mozart: Variations, K.265 / Janacek: Sonata 1 (1905) / Liszt: Funeraillez / Rachmaninov: Etude tableau in C minor, Op. 33 No. 3
 
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CONCERTOS
Bach Gershwin Rachmaninov
Beethoven Grieg Saint-Saens
Brahms Haydn Scriabin
Barber Liszt Schubert/Liszt
Chopin Mendelssohn Schumann
de Falla Mozart Richard Strauss
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RECORDINGS

Click on the sleeves to hear an excerpt from each recording.  These are streamed RealAudio files.  To obtain a free copy of the RealAudio player, click on the icon, below:  

Claremont Digital GSE 1540


Track 6: Allegro, Schubert

Scarlatti - Sonata in E major
Mozart - Variations, 'Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman' and Adagio in B minor
Schubert
- Drei Klavierstucke
Schumann
- Kinderszenen, Op.15
Schumann/Liszt
- Widmung, Op.25 No.1

Ossia Classics URCD107

Schumann - Fantasiestucke Op.12
Liszt - Legende: St. Francois de Paule and
Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 in C sharp minor
Prokofiev - Piano Sonata No.3 in A minor


Track 11: Piano Sonata, Prokofiev

Claremont Digital GSE 1568/9


CD1 Track 2: Variation 1, Bach

With the Goldberg Variations, Johann Sebastian Bach created one of the great monuments of musical art.  The work's magisterial exploration of compositional and keyboard techniques was unprecedented.  Tessa Uys recorded this double CD to mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death in the year 2000.

Claremont Digital GSE 1559

Admirer of this artist's playing will need no second bidding to acquire Tessa Uys' new CD, a finely musical and wide-ranging programme. . . cleanly and poetically projected. . .thoughtfully played with an appealing degree of intimacy. . .unerring musicianship.   Musical Opinion


Track 3: Sonata in C, Scarlatti

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NEWS and Recent Engagements
Upcoming Concerts in 2008
2nd June Lunchtime Recital, St Lawrence Jewry, EC2
9th June Lunchtime Recital, St Lawrence Jewry, EC2
16th June Lunchtime Recital, St Lawrence Jewry, EC2
23rd June Lunchtime Recital, St Lawrence Jewry, EC2
20th July Wigmore Hall, London
Reviews of the Highgate Festival 2006
At Highgate School, the South-African born pianist Tessa Uys gave an inpressive Sunday-afternoon recital.  She was playing the Festival's truly grand Fazioli instrument, and it was marvellous in itself to hear Scarlatti sonatas (K380 in E, the most famous one, and the fleeting K159 in C) translated into such opulent, vibrant, decisive tones.  Uys was deeply affecting in Schubert's Drei Klavierstücke, D946, which Brahms edited many years after the composer's death; and her handling of three Rachmaninov preludes was sturdy.  The early Variations by John McCabe was the novelty, its felicitous virtuosity well conveyed and Liszt's notey, pummelling légende, St François de Paule marchant sur les flots, brought the programme to a rousing close.
PAUL DRIVER: SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE MAGAZINE
Tessa Uys' recital on Sunday in the Great Hall at Highgate School, opened with Scarlatti's Sonatas H380 and K159 and she played them with panache and authority eliciting a tonal range from her Fazioli piano that makes redundant any purist view that such sonatas be played on a harpsichord.  Uys is a musician who can function in any era and her playing of Haydn's Sonata in B minor Hob HVI/32 lacked nothing by way of refinement or sense of time and classical austerity.  Nor has she fears of popular repertoire, even when the demands are formidable as in Schubert's Drei Klavierstücke D946, of which the first two were quite exquisite.  Contemporary music may hold some listeners in awe, but Uys has the skills to make such works as John McCabe's Variations for Piano Op.22 not only truly accessible but also an example of her prodigious technique.  It was fitting that the recital should end on a robust note and Liszt furnished the ideal piece in his St François de Paule marchant sur les flots, a legend given a breathtaking performance.
DAVID SONIN: HAM AND HIGH
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CONTACTS

tessauys@aol.com

 

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