The Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni, winner of the 2018 Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition, has selected a programme that spans the 20th century. The...

The Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni, winner of the 2018 Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition, has selected a programme that spans the 20th century. The first book of Debussy’s Images offers poetic evocation and virtuoso caprice, whereas Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 6, completed in 1940, is the first of his ‘War Sonatas’, characteristically contrasting rhythmic vitality with rich lyricism. Ginastera, too, supplies vivid intensity in his Piano Sonata No. 1 suggesting the sound of the guitar, while Ligeti’s Étude is a Debussyian evocation of a rainbow. Dmytro Choni was born in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1993, and received his first piano lesson at the age of four. In addition to his victory at the 2018 Paloma O’Shea Santander International Competition, he is also a laureate of many prestigious competitions such as the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition (Italy, 2017) and International Piano Competition in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz (Ukraine, 2017). In2019 he received the Vendome Prize at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.