Key to success: Duo d'Accord, the two-piano team of German Sebastian Euler and Taiwanese Lucia Huang, will perform in Ha Noi on November 21 to open the 2012 European Music Festival.—File Photo

HCM CITY (VNS)— Duo d'Accord from Germany will present a piano concert to open the annual European Music Festival in Viet Nam in Ha Noi on Thursday.

Pianists Lucia Huang and Sebastian Euler, lecturers at the Conservatory in Innsbruck in Austria, will play virtuoso works for two pianos and compositions for piano for four hands.

The duo will perform a work for piano and percussion with Meritorious Artist Vu Chi Nguyen, deputy director of the National Academy of Music, and Doan Mai Huong, lecturer in percussion.

Another concert will take place at the HCM City Conservatory on Friday.

Established in 1999, the duo won first prize at the Murray Dranoff Competition in Miami, the most significant piano duo competition worldwide. They performed in Viet Nam last year during the European Days event.

The festival will also feature artists from Wallonia – Brussels (Belgium), Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK, presenting different kinds of musical genres, including jazz, pop and classic.

Jazz concert

Jazz band Empirical Trio from the UK will present compositions and improvisations influenced by film, television, proverbs, sayings and even sports.

They will perform in Ha Noi next Tuesday and in HCM City two days later.

The band consists of alto saxophonist Nathaniel Facey, drummer Shaney Forbes and double bass player Tom Farmer. They have won numerous awards, including the 2010 MOBO for best jazz act.

The festival will end on December 2 with a performance of soprano Emma Transtromer, and daughter of the Swedish Nobel Laureate for Literature – Tomas Transtromer.

The singer will perform musical interpretations of her father's acclaimed poetry, together with the pianist Andreas Kreuger. It will be held in Ha Noi on December 2.

All performances will take place at the Ha Noi's Tuoi Tre (Youth) Theatre and the HCM City Conservatory of Music.

Free tickets can be collected at Goethe Institute in the two cities and the British Council in HCM City.

More information about the festival and its schedule is available on the website www.eumusicfestival.com.— VNS