French Connections: Music for Piano
Sunday 8 June 2025
7.30pm
St Paul's Church, Clifton
Tickets: £16.35
Includes Bristol Beacon booking fee
Step into the salons and side streets of Montmartre and the golden glow of fin-de-siècle Paris. Rising star Ana Bursac curates an evening marking milestone anniversaries of Satie and Ravel with a programme that steps between dream and reality.
Lose yourself in the moonlit reflections of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, the poetic restraint of Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1, and the haunting nostalgia of Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte. Anchored by Chopin’s Ballade No. 4, this recital provides the perfect musical soundscape of Parisian life, from the sultry tunes of the salons frequented by Liszt, to the carnival melodies of the Marais, and the Gregorian tones heard in the city’s Gothic churches.
Join us on a tour of one of Europe’s most beloved cities and experience the profound impact that its culture and architecture had on the music produced there.
Ana Bursac – Piano
Programme
Claude Debussy Clair de lune
Erik Satie Gymnopédie No. 1
Maurice Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte; Sonatine, M.40
Frederic Chopin Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52
About Ana Bursac
Serbian pianist Ana Bursac is a first-class honours graduate of the Royal College of Music, where she was awarded both a full scholarship supported by Sir Simon and Lady Robertson and a Steinway and Sons Award, and where she studied with Professor Dmitri Alexeev, Jianing Kong and Dina Parakhina. Ana gave her first recital at the age of 11 as part of Belgrade Spring Festival and the same year performed as a soloist with the chamber orchestra in Novi Sad, Serbia.
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She has won prizes at renowned national and international competitions including First and Special Prize at the International Young Pianist Competition in Sabac, Serbia, First Prize at the Serbian State Competition, First Prize at Davorin Jenko International Piano Competition in Belgrade, and Third Prize at the Flame International Piano Competition in Paris.
Having performed extensively across Europe, in Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark, France and Serbia, Ana has also appeared in the UK as a soloist at Steinway Hall, the Lansdowne Club, Regent Hall, St. James Piccadilly, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Pallant House Gallery and Pushkin House. In 2018, Ana was invited to perform before HRH Princess Alexandra and in the same year was admitted to the acclaimed International Mendelssohn Academy, Leipzig. She has worked with renowned pianists and pedagogues Jacques Rouvier, Mikhael Voskresensky, Freddy Kempf, Ian Jones, David Westfall, Yuval Admony, Dorian Leljak, Rita Kinka and Peter Jablonski.
Ana was invited to play a duo recital with Emma Arizza at Villa d’Este at Lake Como in June 2017, as part of the festival Arte e Musica Sul Lario which attracts prominent musicians such as Sir András Schiff, Ivo Pogorelich, and Grigory Sokolov. The duo performed at Sala
Carducci at Lake Como and Magazzino Musica in Milan, and across many London venues such as Ashby Manor House, Russian Cultural Centre, St.Stephen’s Church and Shaw Library. In 2020, Ana was awarded the Help Musicians Postgraduate Performance Award, the
following year she was a prize winner at Danubia Talents Liszt International Piano Competition, and in 2023 she was a semi-finalist at the International Piano Competition Val de Travers in Neuchatel, Swtitzerland. Her recent successes include being recipient of the Music Award at Bloomsbury Festival (2023) and becoming Selected Artist for Making Music UK (2025/26).
