Christopher Gunning and Diana Brekalo

Extraordinary pianist Diana Brekalo presented her second CD in this year, “Sonata for Pianoforte” by Christopher Gunning, in London, on 12 December 2015. Christopher Gunning, world famous composer, outhor of music for the films Grace Kelly, La Vie en Rose, Firelight and for the TV series Poirot, four time BAFTA Aword winner (Britisch Academy of Film and Television Arts), in the CD booklet has written that he was impressed by Diana’s performances of contemporary music, which inspired him to write for her a piano piece “wich would explore her extraordinary technique and musicianship”.

Five movements Sonata for Fortepiano is conceptually challenging piano piece with rational structure, but overcome by composer’ ingenious musicality, which whole piece has elevated to a high artistic level, developing each initial idea to its fullness.

Diana’s performance is excellent with impeccable technique and dynamic. She performes technically demanding sections with lightness and brings each theme clearly with dynamic and nuances,
following development of the piece with great musicality.

Erste CD With 24 Nocturnes

The Diana’s album, titled “24 Nocturnes Opus N” , presented in Stuttgart in October 2015. has been well received with remarkable resonance. “The music pieces titeled Nocturnes represent night, and “they are reminiscent of a difficult times” said composer Hubertus Schwinge on the presentation of that CD. After hearing Diana’s performances of his nocturnes, Hubertus Schwinge, excited by her poetic nterpretation, immediately wanted Diana Brekalo to record a album with all his 24 nocturnes.

Promotion of Croatian Composers

Diana Brekalo and Monika Giurgiuman

With release of these two albums Diana Brekalo finished this successful year. In 2015 Diana performed also two world premieres, “Sonata for Pianoforte” by Christopher Gunning in the church in Notting Hill Gate in March, and “Sonata oubliée” or “Forgotten Sonata” by Milko Kelemen, Croatian and world leading avant garde composer. Performance of Kelemen’s Sonata took place on 19 May, in the center of London, in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, under the high patronage of the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Diana Brekalo shone in full light and won the audience. After the concert the people in long queues waited for her autograph.

The Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was the patron of the second Brekalo’s great concert in London, held on 22 January at Rosslyn Hill Chapel in Hampstead. Diana Brekalo performed piano pieces by Croatian composers Ivo Josipovic and Mladen Tarbuk. It was a benefit concert, held for charitable purpose, directed to rebuild the library at Primary School in Gunja, badly damaged by last year’s flooding.
At the same concert Diana Brekalo performed together with her international Trio Solarek and the mezzo-soprano Mae Heidron.

Clara Schumann

Diana Brekalo and Dolores Brekalo

This year was also for Brekalo characterized by great composer and pianist Clara Schumann. Diana Brekalo performed Clara’s piano concerto, Op 7, in A Minor, with the Symphonic Orchestra of the Stuttgart Orchesterverein in front of two thousand spectators at Beethoven Hall, in famous Liederhalle Concert Complex in Stuttgart.

The second concert connected with Clara Schumann, Diana Brekalo performed on 4. December 2015 at the National Museum in Stuttgart together with her sister Dolores Brekalo, master of history and science of music. Diana played works by Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, and Dolores Brekalo masterfully guided through their works. Diana performed on a Double Piano, called Pleyel, from the 19th century, set as an exhibit in the museum. The construction of the double piano Pleyel requires a special piano playing technique and Diana Brekalo had master it , offering an unique experience for the audience because they could exiperience how the piano music had sounded at the time of the great romantics. For the sensitive and virtuoso performance Diana Brekalo received a big applause and standing ovations.

Milko Kelemen (Fotograf: Jasna Lovrincevic)

One of the greatest avant-garde composers in the world and the most famous Croatian composer, Milko Kelemen, celebrates his 91st birthday on the 30th of March 2015. On the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, numerous concerts were held in his honor. On the 19th of May 2015, the Croatian and German pianist star Diana Brekalo will organize a world premiere of the Sonata Oubliée of professor Milko Kelemen in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The concert will be held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square in central London, in a very acoustic church, well-known of its classical music events.

“Sonata Oubliée was created in 2012,” said professor Kelemen in the interview that I conducted with him in January 2015.

Milko Kelemen: “This is my last work. Sonata Oubliée or Forgotten Sonata is the title of a music work that sounds. Sonata has to sound and therefore this composition is a sonata, but not in the sense of the old sonata form, on the contrary it has a free-form.”

Milko Kelemen emphasized that it is his last work.
Milko Kelemen: “I started to compose when I was 11 years old. At that time I composed my first work. It was a composition – an imitation of Mozart. I have changed throughout life. Each composition represents another period of change.”

Diana Brekalo

Since the beginning of the twenty first century Milko Kelemen has already composed 19 works. Seven of them are orchestral and all of them have been publicly performed.
Diana Brekalo has the works of Milko Kelemen regularly on her repertory. In 1999, Brekalo already participated as a student in the international music festival called Days of Milko Kelemen in Slatina, the birth town of Kelemen. On the 17th Days of Milko Kelemen, in October 2011, Diana Brekalo, as a most famous pianist, held an evening concert with works by Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt and three compositions by Milko Kelemen: Dessins Commentés (1964), Pillars Of The Sky (1986) and Sonata for piano (1954).

Diana Brekalo and Mae Heydorn

“It is a great honor to premiere Sonata Oubliée of Milko Kelemen and I am preparing myself with great pleasure for the concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields,” said Diana Brekalo. This year she has already performed a concert in London, in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It was a charity concert, held on 22 January in Rosslyn Hill Chapel in London where she performed solo and with her international piano trio Solarek and mezzo-soprano Mae Heydorn. In April, Diana Brekalo will have a concert at the Beethovensaal in the Liederhalle in Stuttgart. In August she will have a China and Mongolia tour.