"With his history-making concert...pianist Wael Farouk speaks to social inequities and is ready to reach higher" Chicago Tribune • Wael Farouk

The last time the pianist played with the New Philharmonic, in Glen Ellyn, he tackled all five Beethoven concerti in a single concert. Before that, he performed the complete solo piano catalog of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Johannes Brahms in a series of recitals at the schools at which he teaches…That makes Farouk’s concert of Rachmaninoff’s First, Second, and Third Concertos — also alongside the New Philharmonic, and streaming April 17 to June 15 — something of an outlier. Rachmaninoff, after all, wrote a fourth concerto, as well as the concerto-in-all-but-name “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” But playing all five in one sitting comes out to more than three straight hours of music, with nothing to say of much-needed breaks for soloist, conductor, and orchestra. After consulting with music director Kirk Muspratt, Farouk, 40, decided to perform “just” the first three concerti — a feat so unheard of that it may be the first time a pianist has played all three titanic works on one program…Read the full review here

Interview With conductor Kirk Muspratt and Diana Martinez Director of the McAninch Arts Center

“With his history-making concert…pianist Wael Farouk speaks to social inequities and is ready to reach higher” Chicago Tribune

Breathtakingly poetic – New York Concert Review

Here was . . . absolutely masterful playing. – New York Concert Review

Wael Farouk imposed from the first chords of Bach’s Partita in C Minor a gravity of tone, a height of view that belongs only to the greatest. – La Tribune Le Progrès

Wael Farouk played the highly virtuoso, technically challenging solo part with absolute mastery. – Nordwest Zeitung

Absolute virtuosic mastery. – Westfalen-Blatt Bielefelder Zeitung

Here is piano playing that brings chills to the flesh, performed with a rare virtuoso technique. – David Dubal

Pianist Wael Farouk is a ‘super-virtuoso.’ – New Jersey Star-Ledger

Wael Farouk is a completionist… a marathon man in music world -Chicago Tribune

Absolute pianistic brilliance. Technically, one can hardly imagine more pearly runs and differentiated articulation and arpeggios. – Westfalen-Blatt Bielefelder Zeitung

Mr. Farouk simply lived and breathed the music with the poetry of a born artist. – New York Concert Review

A very special musical genius. – Al Ahram Weekly

An audacious and inventive pianist. – La Tribune Le Progrès

Tremendous music making, the kind that defies and transcends any and all challenges. – New York Concert Review

Mr. Farouk daringly showed his mastery and discipline over all sorts of technical hurdles and was even more impressive in making a breathtakingly poetic, singing tone. – New York Concert Review

Completely the virtuoso. – Wilhemshavener Zeitung

Wael Farouk is, without a doubt, a formidable and magnificent pianist . . . Of the most interesting and individualistic I have heard in a long time. – New York Concert Review

The way Mr. Farouk sailed through the piece, as if daydreaming out loud, made masses of notes seem merely incidental. That is how it should be, but only when one hears it does one realize how rare it is. – New York Concert Review

With his history-making concert, pianist Wael Farouk speaks to social inequities and is ready to reach higher. – Chicago Tribune

A virtuosity and an expression without equal. – La Tribune Le Progrès

One of the best renditions of the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto I’d ever heard. – New York Concert Review