Liam Furey Piano Recital

Although the first scheduled artist for the Globe Sunday March 29 concert can no longer appear, the organisers of the Sunday Matinee concert series are delighted that Liam Furey, a young Wellington pianist with already many achievements, has agreed to perform.

Liam Furey was first taught piano at the age of nine, discovering classical music at the age of eleven. It was from that point he knew he wanted to be a classical pianist and composer.

Liam is a third-year student at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, doing a double major in Classical Piano and Composition. Liam has been very proactive in the Wellington region, doing music for nine theatre productions, and has been a frequent prize-winner at competitions run by the New Zealand Institute of Registered Music Teachers.

Liam received LTCL and LMusNZ Piano diplomas in 2017, and was a two-time finalist in the NZSM’s Body/Harris Prize for “Best Performance of a New Zealand Work”. Liam has also had considerable success as a composer, winning the Senior Composition Prize for Chamber Music NZ’s 2016 Secondary School Contest, and winning NZSM’s Matthew Marshall Award 2019 for “Composition for ensemble with guitar in a prominent role” and third in 2019’s Lilburn Composition Competition. After his studies, Liam hopes to work full-time as a freelance classical pianist and composer.

Liam will be playing music by Bach and Chopin, a Schubert sonata, and Fantasy pieces by Schumann. Liam’s dedication to contemporary music will also be in evidence in his performance of Arapatiki by New Zealand composer Gillian Whitehead, and a set of pieces by French composer Pierre Boulez.

The concert is proceeding against the background of the impact of the Covid 19 virus on such events. At this stage the scale of the concert is well within the limits set by the government, and the risk is considered to be low locally. It is requested, however, that people who are feeling ill not attend, and if there are developments in the pandemic the oranisers reserve the right to cancel the concert.