Elizabeth Sombart’s artistic life has a reach far beyond the world of classical music and its admirers. The French pianist is an unofficial cultural ambassador as well thanks, in part, to her establishing Fondation Résonnance in 1998. Fondation Résonnance’s aim is to offer a chance for free music education to groups and individuals who otherwise might not receive it. Moreover, Sombart advocates different standards of evaluating music education as well, foregoing traditional exams and other measuring sticks as a method of looking at performance. The Fondation’s efforts, as well, have crossed national borders and now reach far beyond France.
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The organization, as well, has brought music programming into institutions where such programming is scarce. Prisons, hospitals, and orphanages benefit from Fondation Résonnance’s commitment to music. Work such as this paid off unexpected dividends for Sombart when she achieved the rank of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite for Lifetime Achievement and later, in 2008, when France made her a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. The recognition of her impact on French art and life immortalizes her for generations to come.
It is one of the well-deserved capstones for a musical voyage that began as a young child. She started studying piano at 7 years old and entered her hometown Strasbourg Conservatory at the age of 11. A first prize showing at the National Piano and Chamber Music Awards catapulted Sombart to Buenos Aires where she began studying with classical music giant Bruno Leonardo Gelber. She later studied with other luminaries such as Vienna. Austria’s Hilde Langer-Rühl and London’s Peter Feuchtwamger.
She later assumed the role of teacher as well during a tenure at Conservatoire Rachmaninoff. Another tenure working with Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz. Recent years have seen her work with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with great success. The steadily building momentum of the last decade has culminated with recent release of her collection Singing the Nocturnes.
It is her best release yet. Sombart’s talents as a pianist makes her uniquely suited to re-interpret Chopin’s piano cycle as she channels its whirlwinds, passion, highs and lows with confidence and fleet-fingered melodic control. It is the sound of a world-class musician working either at or near the peak of her dazzling powers. Elizabeth Sombart’s Singing the Nocturnes isn’t work that traps a classical music work under glass like a resplendent butterfly but, instead, jolts it to life with a fully integrated performance. She plays it as if she composed each note.
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There is no doubt that the splendid work away from the recording studio contributes to the overall excellence of this release. Elizabeth Sombart draws her inspiration from a variety of sources and the one quality, if no other, they share is their unimpeachable honesty. There is no fakery in her. She is alive with a sense of possibility rare among any modern musicians, let alone classical, and nothing will dim that fire. It will continue burning bright for many years to come.
Chadwick Easton