Alexej Gorlatch (Piano)

NCH, Dublin Wed 8pm €10, €30 01-4170000 If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, would seem to be Alexej Gorlatch’s thinking behind his recital at the National Concert Hall next Wednesday.

Gorlatch took the top prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition in May 2009 (pictured at the ceremony with President Mary McAleese), and this recital – part of the package of recitals that comes with the first prize – recaps on repertoire that he played during the competition: a sonata by Beethoven (the Pathétique rather than the Sonata in A, Op 101, which he played in 2009), as well as Bartók's Out of Doors Suite, Bill Whelan's The Currachand Chopin's Op 10 Studies(all of which he played en route to his Dublin success).

Gorlatch’s performance of the Chopin studies prompted me to write at the time of a delivery that was “awe-inspiringly confident and assured – the first three studies alone were done with a perfection which apparently effortlessly set him apart from everyone else”. Definitely a player worth checking out.