Khatia Buniatishvili had hoped to perform again at the last Ruhr Piano Festival under the artistic direction of Franz Xaver Ohnesorg, despite the birth of her first child about a month ago. However, on medical advice, she has now decided with a heavy heart not to fly with her newborn yet. It would have been her 14th performance since her German debut, to which Franz Xaver Ohnesorg invited her in 2009, as a stand-in for the ill Hélène Grimaud.

We thank Sodi Braide for taking over the piano part. Thus we can present the concert programme in unchanged form.

Sodi Braide will thus make his debut at the Ruhr Piano Festival, which had originally been planned for 2022. The British-born pianist and conductor of Nigerian origin studied in Paris and Madrid with Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher and Alicia de Larrocha, among others. In 2021 he performed in duo with Khatia Buniatishvili at a gala concert in Paris. In addition to his solo career, Sodi Braide currently teaches at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva.