Imagine you’re walking through Paris by night, rue by rue, feeling all the Baudelarian’s Spleen and breathing all the history, until… a moment. You stop, captured by some distant music. Softly you recognize Satie’s notes, while they start filling those voids you didn’t even imagine to have.
Most likely you were walking around Île Saint-Louis, and the music was coming from the Piano Revenge Festival!
Introduction, dates, and the philosophy behind the Festival
Piano Revenge is a festival that converges the visions of pianists around the world, in three evenings entirely dedicated to music expression and characterized by a set of personalized and emotional performances for solo piano. During the 19th, 20th, and 21st of June 2025, an array of artists will reach Paris and perform in the delicate, elegant yet intimate Théâtre de l’Île-Saint-Louis.
During the mentioned evenings the pianists will express their music by following the main motto of the Festival: “In a world overloaded with technologies and the business-as-usual approach to life, one seeks for a place to escape, a craving for everything natural, organic, and profoundly beautiful.” Intimate piano music does fit such a description, doesn’t it?
Erik Satie’s anniversary and a very peculiar piano
The festival will feature a selection of contemporary international pianists and composers, for whom piano music has become a vital experience as well as breathing air. The pursuit of beauty in musical form comes not only from each artist’s cultural and personal background. In addition, the Festival holds the ambition to celebrate and solemnize Erik Satie. 2025 coincides with Satie’s 100-year-death anniversary, and we couldn’t be much but grateful to spread the knowledge about a foundational figure as the creator of Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes to the world.
Inside the venue, the pianists will perform surrounded by a warm red velvet color, a leading characteristic of the Théâtre de l’Île-Saint-Louis. All the music will be played on a meaningful instrument: the Alain Kremski piano. Kremski (1940-2018) was a French pianist, composer, musicologist, and a good friend of Anna Bondareva, the key persona behind the Festival’s development.
As seen up to now, Piano Revenge holds and seals in its roots all the prerogatives to create a meaningful environment of knowledge-sharing, unwinding moments for the crowd, and profound growth for the involved pianists. May the first edition of the Festival be the overture of a successful and exciting series over the upcoming years.
With a wish to all and an invitation to keep an eye on the upcoming news and lineup of the Festival (to come in the upcoming weeks),
Davide, Edoardo, and the Modern Classical Music Team