I’m excited to be returning to the Boston area this spring! I’ll be performing a blockbuster (or is it fingerbuster?) solo recital in Cambridge at one of our leading educational institutions, the MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology.
MIT works to integrate the arts across their entire curriculum, disciplines and majors. They enrich and encourage artistic collaborations and partnerships, and then share their work in concerts, symposiums, exhibitions and publications. Evan Ziporyn, the Distinguished Professor of Music, Chair, and Faculty Director of MIT CAST invited me along with an incredibly interesting and talented group of artists : Terry Riley, Joe Lavano, the Boston Camerata, Roomful of Teeth, BIC, Jacob Collier, and BMOP.I’m featuring very bold and varied works by some of today’s leading contemporary composers at MIT on my recital. I’m particularly excited by Don’t Want to Wait – a strikingly evocative piece written by Evan and his wife Christine Southworth. I first premiered this work at the Open Source Music Festival last season as part of a larger suite that called COUPLETS.
In addition, I’ll also perform the work written by Bernard Rands and Augusta Read Thomas for COUPLETS, called Two Thoughts About The Piano. This performance – along with the Bernard’s Four Impromptus for Piano – will also mark the occasion of his 85th birthday!
But his is not the only birthday we are celebrating. John Harbison is celebrating his 80th, and I’ll offer his Three Montale Sketches, while his orchestral works will be featured in a separate program by BMOP.
The Three Preludes of Elena Ruehr display her lyrical and rhythmically vibrant music, and her deep reverence and connection to literature and nature. Keeril Makan creates enthralling and provocative music that truly deserves wider appreciation, and I’m excited to perform his composition, Afterglow.
Charles Shadle, a member of the Choctaw Nation, has focused much of his work on vocal music that include 2 operas, and I’ll be performing A Tale of My Native Land (Ballade after Hawthorne). Finally, I’ll perform the marvelous last piano work by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti – the Etudes Book III which was completed in 2001.
https://arts.mit.edu/cast/about