Today, at the Church of St Bernadette, younger audiences were treated to The Story of Babar the Elephant by Francis Poulenc and to Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, performed by the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie conducted by its Director of Music, Nicolas Chalvin and graced by the piano duo of sisters Lidija and Sanja Bizjak, from Serbia.

The evening was given over to performances by French classical pianist Roger Muraro at the Castle Museum, in a program devoted to Franz Liszt, a favorite composer of inspirational fellow pianist Eliane Richepin, founder of the Annecy Festival, to whom the evening was dedicated.

Roger Muraro’s interpretations of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, the Wagner Transcriptions and Piano Sonata in B minor captivated the audience, reaffirming Olivier Messiaen’s own personal congratulations to him on, ‘his dazzling technique, his mastery, the quality of his tone, his emotion ...’

Victor Alexandrov, the AVC Charity Foundation music reviewer