Lisa Batiashvili, Violin & Paul Lewis, Piano

The mop-top musician to emerge from Liverpool most recently wasn’t born until after the breakup of those other four famous Liverpudlians. Pianist Paul Lewis didn’t take up piano until age 12 and learned about music at a local library, where he immersed himself in the recordings of the great Alfred Brendel, with whom he would later study. Ironically, it was Brendel who, after hearing Georgian-born Lisa Batiashvili perform in 2001, wrote, “Every note both sang and spoke… proving once more that great violinists reveal themselves at an early age.” Batiashvili has observed, “There is nothing more exciting than attending a live performance and feeling every moment with the artists… I am constantly striving to find new ways of expressing what’s within the music, and this helps to keep things fresh, new and exciting….” And Lewis, who is winning worldwide acclaim as an interpreter of Schubert, says, “People wonder whether there’s something valedictory about [Schubert’s] last sonata, but for me there’s almost a sense of acceptance… there’s not so much of a struggle anymore, just a sense of accepting your fate.”