No, It’s This Pianist In The Tchaikovsky

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 9

No, It’s This Pianist In The Tchaikovsky

Oops, the first wrong entry in the festival diary —that John Ogden would be soloist in the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra will bring its own soloists to the festival and a 2Lyear-old Sydney pianist, Thomas Ungar, will play the Tchaikovsky.

This work has had its influence on Ungar’s career. Playing its first movement, he won the keyboard section of the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Australian concerto and vocal competitions last year. The performance was described as one of the finest in the competitions for years, and Sydney critics were warm in their praise. The Christchurch concert will be the start of his travels.

On his return to Australia Ungar will appear with two orchestras at the Adelaide Festival of Arts.

Touring for the A.8.C., he will play with A.B.C. orchestras in Brisbane, and make radio and television broadcasts.

Ungar plans to go to London this year for post-gradu-ate studies with Madame Curcio, to whom he was recommended by a fellow Hungarian pianist, Peter Frankl, who heard him play while touring Australia. Ungar went to Australia from Hungary In 1957. He had already won first prize there in a Bartok competition. For nine years he studied

with Alexander Sverjensky at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, gaining a teacher and performer diploma and an A.M.E.B. diploma. Ungar is a pianist with a bassoon in his knapsack, he studied the instrument for five years.

March 9, Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Ungar (piano), the barracks. March 23, John Ogdon (piano), Civic Theatre. March 27, N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra with John Ogdon (piano), the barracks.