A castle which seems made for music, a pianist who is the toast of the media and the public: all the magic ingredients for a great concert were in place at the residence of the princes of Chimay, which welcomed Jan Krzysztof Broja for a recital of works by Fryderyk Chopin.

On the programme: Nocturnes, Op 62, no 1 in B major and no 2 in E major
                                Barcarolle, Op 60
                                Ballade no 4, Op 51
                                24 preludes, Op 28

"The family of the princes of Chimay has its place in the history of the musical relations which were woven between Brussels and Poland in the second half of the XIX^th century. (...) The inhabitants of Chimay discovered Polish music through the intermediary of Fryderyk Chopin, welcoming to Chimay a virtuoso friend, the Irish pianist and composer George Alexander Osborne", wrote Marie Cornaz in an article in the Belgian musicology review entitled La Musique polonaise chez les princes de Chimay (Polish Music and the Chimay princes). Ms Cornaz then had the pleasure of introducing the concert with a little talk on the links between Chimay and Polish music. The thing about the venue is that it is not just remarkable in terms of its beauty, it is also remarkable in historical terms. And we have only scratched the surface when we say that the Chimay princes were the first importers of Chopin’s music to Belgium.
It was Thérésa Cabarrus, also known under the patronymic of Madame Tallien, the wife of the prince of Chimay François Joseph de Riquet de Caraman, who commissioned the construction of the Petit Théâtre at the beginning of the XIXth century. Transformed in 1863 into a miniature replica of the theatre at the Fontainebleu castle, this hall holds a festival of Baroque music every year. It was in this delightful setting that Jan Krzysztof Broja held his event.

Jan Krzysztof Broja was born in Warsaw in 1972. He studied piano in Frankfurt, Hannover and Warsaw before showing what he could do in various international competitions: first in Hanau (1989) and then Braunschweig (1991) in Germany, in Bucharest in 1995, in Vilnius in 1999 as well as in Passadena (California) in 2002. It was in 1999, following his concert in the Lithuanian capital, that the pianist truly won his spurs: the seasons which followed were crowned with the utmost success for Broja and were held in the best venues in central Europe. 
In 2005, he was invited to sit on the jury of the XXIst International Piano Festival in Bucaramanga, Colombia; he was also a music consultant during the filming of The Pianist by Roman Polański. He recorded his first two discs in 2009, one of which includes all of his interpretations of the chamber music of Fryderyk Chopin.

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The concert began at 20:00 and was preceeded by a historical introduction by Marie Cornaz, a Doctor of Musicology, curator of the musical collections at the Royal Library of Belgium and author of the book Les Princes de Chimay et la musique (Bruxelles, Dexia-La Renaissance du Livre, 2002, 272 p. + CD).

All tickets: 15 €.
Reservations from 15 August at the Service Communal du Tourisme de Chimay:
Rue du Château, 14
6460 Chimay
Tel.: +32 (0)60 21 22 10
More details on the concert:
http://www.festivaldewallonie.be/2010/concert.php?num=73&fe=ha
This concert was organised by the Festival de Wallonie-Hainaut as part of Chopin Year 2010.