Pallant Proms: A Harmonious Revival

Rieko Makita is a multi-award-winning Japanese-Australian pianist based in London. Rieko has performed in prestigious venues across Australia, Japan, Italy, Germany, and Austria, including the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall and the City Recital Hall in Angel Place.

Rieko is currently the Constant & Kit Lambert Junior Fellow and Artistic Diploma student at the Royal College of Music, supported by the Help Musicians Postgraduate Award and The Musicians’ Company. She currently studies with Dina Parakhina and Sofya Gulyak. As part of her Junior Fellow projects, she has been collaborating with visual artists alongside performers and composers of the RCM, and curating concerts that promote music by Japanese and Australian composers.

Award-winning pianist Parvis Hejazi is known for his captivating interpretations of the most demanding works of piano repertoire. From Mozart and Brahms to Liszt and Messiaen, Parvis Hejazi shines not only with sparkling technical skill and analytic clarity, but also with his ability to capture the psychological and emotional nuances of the music which transcends to the audience. Continuous exploration of the entire range of sound colours, highly contrasting and innovative programming and a passion for the historical, cultural, and religious contexts of music are some of the trademarks of the London-based pianist, who was born in Germany in 1999.

Parvis has studied with some of the greatest pianists of the present day. In Germany, Austria, Italy and the US, Parvis worked with Konrad Elser, Markus Groh, Christopher Hinterhuber, Igor Levit, Jerome Lowenthal, Gilead Mishory, Jerome Rose, Anatol Ugorski and Lars Vogt. In 2017, Parvis moved to the United Kingdom to study with Norma Fisher and Vanessa Latarche at the Royal College of Music in London. Having graduated with the highest distinction, Parvis pursues an Artist Diploma in Performance at the College.

Paul Mnatsakanov is an emerging young pianist, fortepianist and harpsichordist. Currently, he is studying at the Royal College of Music in London, where he is an RCM scholar, as a Joint Principal Study student with the Head of Piano, Prof. Vanessa Latarche, fortepiano professor, Dr. Geoffrey Govier, and Chair of Historical Keyboard Instruments, Prof. Terence Charlston. He also studies with Philippe Raskin in Vienna and Ekaterina Mechetina in Moscow.

Paul has performed in numerous festivals in the UK, Italy, Russia, France, the USA, Armenia, and other countries. He has collaborated with many orchestras around the world. Recent performance venues include the Royal Albert Hall and the Wigmore Hall.

Paul graduated from the Anglo-American School of Moscow with an IB Diploma. He is passionate about learning languages – he speaks English, Russian, French and Italian fluently – and he has a particular interest in conducting, opera and theatre directing.