FOUR-HAND PIANO
Blaich/Leverett Duo
Sunday, OCTOBER 10, 2010 -2:00 p.m.
$10 at the door; wheelchair/elevator accessible
Pianists Monica Jakuc Leverett and Tanya Blaich take the stage for Schubert, Brahms and Kurtag.
The classical piano concert program features Schubert’s Rondo in A Major and Fantasy in F Minor; Curt Cacioppo’s Selected Pawnee Preludes; Brahms’ Hungarian Dances and piano pieces from Op. 118; and Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag’s Piano Duets from “Games,” a series of pieces written since 1973.
Admission to the concert is $10 at the door and includes a meet-the-artists reception with refreshments.
North Hall artist gallery: Along with the concert, there will be an exhibit of art work by local artists on the first floor of the North Hall. back to home/events
contact: 413- 667- 5543 / www.northhallhuntington.org
Bios
Monica Jakuc Leverett ,Leverett is Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor Emerita of Music at Smith College, where she taught from 1969 to 2008. A graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, she studied with James Friskin, Beveridge Webster, Leon Fleisher, Russell Sherman, and Konrad Wolff. She has performed in New York City in Alice Tully and Merkin Halls. A champion of women composers, she has appeared as a solo and chamber music pianist on three continents and has commissioned a number of works by living composers. Inspired by Malcolm Bilson, she has performed on early pianos since 1986. She is a board member of Arcadia Players and frequently appears with them on her Walter and Graf replica fortepianos built by Paul McNulty.
Her discography includes fortepiano sonatas by Marianne von Martinez, Marianna von Auenbrugger, and Joseph Haydn on Titanic Records, and Francesca LeBrun’s complete Opus 1 Sonatas for fortepiano and violin, with Dana Maiben, on Dorian Discovery. Her newest CD, “Fantasies for Fortepiano,” features works by Mozart, Haydn, C.P.E. Bach, and Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata. It is available on cdbaby.com.
Tanya Blaich ,made her concert debut with the Washington-Idaho Symphony at age 15. In addition to recent North American performances in Alice Tully Hall, Jordan Hall, and the Banff Centre for the Arts, she has performed in Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland ,and France. She has performed for the Piatigorsky outreach program in New England and has been heard on WGBH, Austrian National Radio, and the WCRB Radio Performance Series. She is a faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music in the collaborative piano and voice departments. She has given recitals and master classes at Dickinson, Dartmouth and Atlantic Union Colleges, Columbia University, and the Idyllwild Arts Academy and has performed with members of the Lydian string quartet in the Emmanuel Music Schumann Series in Boston and at Brandeis University. In addition to studying at the Sorbonne, she earned her diploma with distinction from the Vienna Conservatory as well as her MM and DMA degrees from the New England Conservatory. In collaboration with baritone Klemens Geyerhofer, Ms. Blaich won the top prize at the 2000 Robert Schumann competition in Germany.
This special program in the Festival is supported in part by grants from the arts councils of Blandford, Chester, Huntington, Russell, and Worthington, with underwriting from The Republican and the Daily Hampshire Gazette.