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Pianist, 101, plays the blues

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norman lebrecht

August 31, 2019

The Swiss pianist Julien Francois Zbinden, a former head of the country’s creative rights society, never misses a day at his piano.

Julien will be 102 in November.

Comments

Ruben Greenberg says:

August 31, 2019 at 12:24 pm

Pianist, but most of all, very interesting composer who deserves far more performances. Still so cool though going on 102!

Fabio Luisi says:

August 31, 2019 at 1:27 pm

Mr. Zbinden is not only an excellent pianist, but a wonderful composer. I remember having conducted his “Terra Dei” in Geneva some years ago.

Ruben Greenberg says:

September 1, 2019 at 10:20 am

By all means, Maestro Luisi, if you get a chance, conduct more of his works. He’s of the generation whose music was implicitly banned by the domination of the avant-garde in the 60s and 70s. I could list several other composers that seldom had the right to be played because they were guilty of being “tonal”. Yet there was nothing reactionary about them, either musically or in their world view.

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Edgar Self says:

September 1, 2019 at 12:01 am

Extraordinary! Francois Zbinden has overtaken Eubie Blake. is gaining on Leo Ornstein, and has collected an impressive testimonial from maestro Fabio Luisi. Impressive.