Music for Piano: Rachmaninoff and Gershwin
Saturday 6 June 2026
7.30pm
St Paul's Church, Clifton
Tickets: £15
Two giants of the 20th century piano repertoire — one rooted in the grand Romantic tradition of Old Europe, the other lighting up the American Jazz Age. Rachmaninoff and Gershwin never quite inhabited the same world, yet both found in the piano a vehicle of extraordinary emotional power.
In this captivating recital, Ana Bursac navigates both with equal assurance — from the brooding lyricism of Rachmaninoff's Preludes to the rhythmic wit and blue-tinged nostalgia of Gershwin's Rhapsody. The programme opens with Tchaikovsky's beloved The Seasons, a fitting prelude to an evening that celebrates the piano at its most expressive.
Ana Bursac – Piano
Programme
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37a
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Selection from Ten Preludes, Op. 23
George Gershwin:
Three Preludes
The Man I Love
I Got Rhythm
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.
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).