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MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at 847-491-4819
or jkm229@northwestern.edu
PDF version of this
press release
Festival to feature
Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, jazz artists Jean-Michel Pilc
and Marcus Roberts, and piano "monster concert."
EVANSTON, IL—Northwestern
University School of Music will present the piano festival From
Vienna to Harlem on April 3-10, 2004. The festival will
comprise 19 events over seven days, featuring the piano in a
broad range of repertoire from classical to jazz. Programming
will include recitals and chamber music with artists Leon Fleisher,
Menahem Pressler, Sergei Babayan, and Margo Garrett; two jazz
evenings with Jean-Michel Pilc and the Marcus Roberts Trio; a
piano monster concert; and educational offerings consisting of
masterclasses and a children's concert. All events will take
place at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive, and
Lutkin Hall, 700 University Place, in Evanston.
Tickets, priced from $10-$25, are available
at the Pick-Staiger Box Office or by calling 847- 467-4000.
Educational events are free and open to the public.
The centerpiece of From Vienna to
Harlem will be concerts by four of today's most noted
pianists. A recital by Fleisher, with works by Bach, Brahms,
Schubert, Kirchner, Koston, and Sessions, will include a rare-two
handed performance. Pressler will collaborate with members
of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Brahms's Piano Quintet
in F Minor, Op. 34 and will also perform as a soloist. The Goldberg
Variations by Bach will be featured on Babayan's solo
recital, and Pilc will perform his original compositions and
improvisations on works by Chopin, Ellington, Gershwin, and
Edith Piaf. Each program, except for that of Mr. Pilc, will
be preceded by a mini-concert of piano preludes featuring students
of the School of Music.
Other Festival highlights include the
Marcus Roberts Jazz Trio in "New Orleans Meets Harlem" with
music by and improvisations on Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton,
Scott Joplin, and others; a children's program "All Keyed
Up," hosted by pianist/harmonica player Howard Levy; and
a monster concert with eight pianos and repertoire for up to
16 hands. Artists for the latter will be School of Music faculty
members Marcia Bosits, Elizabeth Buccheri, Alan Chow, James Giles,
Dean Toni-Marie Montgomery, Ursula Oppens, and Sylvia Wang, with
guest performers to be announced.
Several special events, all of which
are free and open to the public, will be offered in conjunction
with the Festival. Masterclasses, with students of the School
of Music, will be presented by each of the four featured pianists
and by noted pedagogue Marvin Blickenstaff and collaborative
pianist Margo Garrett. A program of chamber music will feature
Ms. Garrett, Gail Williams, horn, and Joseph Genualdi, violin;
and piano students of the Interlochen Arts Academy, a performing
arts high school, will offer a recital.
"We are very proud to present a
festival of this caliber and breadth," said Dean Toni-Marie
Montgomery. "The Winter Chamber Music Festival and the new
piano festival offer students and the community access to some
of the finest musicians of today."
Founded in 1895, the Northwestern University
School of Music is one of the oldest degree-granting music schools
in the United States, combining the resources of a world-class
private research university with conservatory-level musical training.
Located just north of the vibrant cultural center of Chicago,
the School is home to 550 undergraduate and graduate students
and a world-renown faculty of more than 125, many of whom are
members of the Chicago Symphony and Chicago Lyric Opera orchestras.
Students may participate in 16 major
ensembles that perform a wide variety of repertoire. School of
Music alumni are found in major arts institutions and universities
worldwide in performance, music administration, and teaching.
From Vienna to Harlem is made
possible, in part, by generous support from Betty A. Van Gorkom,
the Schroeder Foundation, and the Dorothy Fox Johnson Visiting
Artists Fund.
Sergei Babayan was
born in Armenia into a family of musicians and studied with Lev
Naumov and Mikhail Pletnev. In the span of only three years,
he was awarded First Prize in several international competitions
including the Robert Casadsus Competition in Cleveland (1989),
the Hamamatsu Competition in Japan (1991) and the Scottish International
Competition (1992). Babayan has performed throughout Europe,
Russia, and Japan, and has appeared with such distinguished ensembles
as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Warsaw
Philharmonic, and the BBC Scottish Symphony. He is currently
artist in residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Marvin Blickenstaff is
a nationally recognized piano pedagogue. He has presented workshops
for piano teachers throughout the U.S. and frequently appears
as soloist and lecturer at the national convention of the Music
Teachers National Association. For the past eleven years he has
been on the faculty of International Workshops for which he has
performed and lectured in Canada, Austria, Scotland, Norway,
France, and Switzerland. He was named Indiana's 1992 Music Teacher
of the Year and in 1995 made a 15 lecture/concert tour of New
Zealand. Blickenstaff currently serves as Board President of
the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy.
Leon Fleisher,
a distinguished pianist, composer, and teacher, was born in San
Francisco and began piano studies at the age of 4. A student
of the legendary Artur Schnabel, he appeared with the New York
Philharmonic at 16 and launched a brilliant solo career. He fell
victim to a right-hand ailment in 1964 and from then on played
left-hand piano literature only until recently. A 2003 Carnegie
Hall recital with two-hand literature was met with great critical
acclaim. Fleisher teaches at Peabody Conservatory and at the
Berkshire Music Center.
Margo Garrett is
one of America's most esteemed collaborative pianists. She regularly
partners with internationally recognized artists and has recorded
with Jean-Pierre Rampal, Kathleen Battle, and Jaime Laredo. Her
recording with Ms. Battle received a Grammy Award. Garrett is
a former faculty member of the New England Conservatory and the
Tanglewood Music Center, and is currently on the faculties of
the Julliard School and the University of Minnesota, where she
holds the Ethel Alice Hitchcock Chair in Accompanying.
Jean-Michel
Pilc was born in Paris in 1960 and is one of Europe's
best known jazz pianist/composer/arrangers. Largely self-taught,
he has performed and recorded with Daniel Humair, Roy Haynes,
and Jean Toussaint, and has toured more than 40 countries.
Pilc moved to New York in 1995 and founded a trio with bass
player Francois Moutin and drummer Ari Hoenig. The trio has
performed extensively in Europe and the U.S. In 2000, Pilc
was honored as the Best French Jazz Musician of the Year by
the French Academy of Jazz.
Menahem Pressler,
born in Magdeburg, Germany, began his early musical training
in Israel. He first came to public attention in 1946 as the winner
of the Debussy Piano Competition in San Francisco and as a debut
artist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Since then, Pressler
has appeared with many of the world's finest orchestras, including
the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland
Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic. He co-founded the Beaux
Arts Trio in 1955, which has became one of the world's pre-eminent
chamber music ensembles, and was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit
from the National Society of Arts and Letters in 2002. Pressler
holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Music at Indiana
University, where he has been a faculty member since 1955.
Marcus Roberts was
born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1963. He is a long-time collaborator
with Wynton Marsalis, touring and recording with him since 1985.
Blinded at age five, Roberts was the first jazz musician to have
his first three recordings reach No. 1 on Billboard's
traditional jazz chart. He was also the First Prize winner of
the first Thelonias Monk International Jazz Competition and has
served as Music Director for Lincoln Center Jazz Festival tours.
Roberts's trio includes drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Roland
Guerin.
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