Piano Recital

Keen-eyed observers will notice a common thread running through this summer’s program. Four composers feature throughout: Haydn, Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, and Jon Deak. Together, they paint a broad, if not comprehensive, history of classical music. Josef Haydn (1732 – 1809), widely acknowledged as the inventor of both the symphony and the string quartet, codified much of the classical era. Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847) was a true romantic and wore his heart on his sleeve. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975) typified the complexities and contradictions of the 20th Century, his music touching upon emotions like irony or despair. Finally, Jon Deak (b. 1943), our Composer-in-Residence, has, in his unique and very 21st Century manner, blurred the line between music and theater.

For Opening Night, we have esteemed American pianist Kenny Broberg, laureate at the Tchaikovsky (Moscow) and Van Kliburn (Texas) international competitions. The concert is a classic pianistic showcase beginning with a heartrending Fantasia by Mozart that presages the romantic music that came a half-century later. Then, with Mendelessohn and Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, you have composers looking backward hundreds of years to a baroque form that was a favorite of Bach. Finally, you can’t have a recital by someone like Kenny Broberg without at least one opportunity for him to show off his technical chops and ridiculously virtuoso bona-fides: hence Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz.