Emmanuel Despax is, without a doubt, one of the finest Chopin interpreters today, and it is a coup for the Penrith Conservatorium of Music to have secured his only Sydney appearance for the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre. It follows a concert in Adelaide earlier this week and rounds out a tour of China and Japan.

Emmanuel Despax in Chopin: A Stranger in Paris. Photo © Eddy Summers

The title, Chopin: A Stranger in Paris, applies to the first half of the concert – a virtuosic solo set, in which Despax not only traces Chopin’s emotional and musical journey as an émigré in 19th-century Paris, but also draws out the composer’s love of Italian bel canto and Bach’s counterpoint, which he combined to create lyrical melodies brimming with extraordinary harmonies.

A mischievous Polish prodigy, Chopin grew from a playful genius into a musical radical who seriously broke with convention. His composition teacher at the Warsaw Conservatory, Józef Elsner famously noted, “Chopin does not stick to the beaten track … this will constitute an originality in him that no one has ever possessed to such a high degree.”

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