Monday, May 5, 2008

U.S. Debut of Nigerian Pianist Sodi Braide's CD: WHPK-FM Chicago May 13


[Sodi Braide: Franck, œuvres pour piano; Lyrinx\Talents LYR 249 (2006)]

AfriClassical was delighted to receive this message from Sergio Mims, an African American host of a classical music radio program in Chicago and online: “HELLO! This is Sergio again at WHPK-FM in Chicago (88.5) and live stream on-line http://www.WHPK.org and I just wanted to let you know that I will be playing selections from Sodi Braide's César Franck solo piano CD on Tuesday May 13
th. I will be playing the Prelude, Choral and Fugue and the Prelude, Aria and Final by Franck along with Paul Dukas' Symphony in C major and Hector Berlioz' Messe Solennelle. My show airs 12 noon- 3PM (Central Time).”

A prior post on AfriClassical was entitled: “Piano Works of Franck on CD by Nigerian Pianist Sodi Braide”. The CD is: Sodi Braide: Franck, œuvres pour piano (Franck, Works for Piano); Lyrinx\Talents LYR 249 (2006). It is presently available from selected European and Japanese music websites. Here is a one-minute Audio Sample

The Nigerian pianist Sodi Braide is the son of two college professors, born in 1975 in the U.K., where his father was a graduate student. He studied piano from the age of three. The family returned to Nigeria in 1979, where no classical conservatory existed and qualified teachers were so difficult to find that his parents had to drive him as far as 100 kilometers for his weekly lessons. At a 1987 competition in Nigeria, Sodi was not the winner but he so impressed the pianist Éric Heidsieck, a member of the jury, that at age 13 he received a 2-year renewable scholarship to study in France. Sodi studied hard, and was admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique (CNSM) of Paris at 16. In an interview in French with PianoBleu.com, he is quoted as saying: “I had already played one or two times in South Africa, and I remembered that most of the South Africans, at the time, had never seen seen a Black pianist of classical music, 'music of the Whites', what's more in the finals of such a competition. It was just after the end of apartheid, and some were really thunderstruck to discover that in fact there was not a cultural barrier due to skin color!'” [AfriClassical congratulates Sodi Braide on his decision to record the beautiful but little-known solo piano pieces of César Franck, a composer who is generally known as a composer of works for organ. Likewise, we congratulate radio host Sergio Mims of WHPK-FM on presenting the U.S. radio debut of excerpts from the CD.]







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