Stephen Hough at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

British piano virtuosoStephen Hough is known for his masterfully nuanced renditions of works by the likes of Frédéric Chopin and Franz Schubert—two composers he’ll be interpreting at a Vancouver Recital Society concert this Sunday (November 25) at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. But he has another treat in store: the Canadian debut of his own Piano Sonata No. 2 (notturno luminoso). We loved the way he recently described what it was about in the Guardian: “the brightness of a brash city in the hours of darkness; the loneliness of premorning; sleeplessness and the dull glow of the alarm clock’s unmoving hours; the irrational fears or the disturbing dreams which are only darkened by the harsh glare of a suspended, dusty light bulb.” According to a reviewer at the same publication, “his fist-pounding at the extremes of the piano was shocking, yet, at its most virtuosic and sparse, the music had a vibrant presence.”