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Thus begins our 25^th Anniversary Season.  

If you were at Evren’s concert on Saturday, you were part of a special evening of music-making. It was one of those concerts where I lost myself to the music, such trust this young man earned early on. It's challenging for me to turn off my critical ear when sitting in the audience.

Saturday night I was able to sit back and listen. It is difficult to choose a favorite moment from the evening but I can point to a few. In “Sunken Cathedral” from the Debussy Preludes, I could really visualize an ancient cathedral emerging from the waves accompanied by the ghostly sound of church bells, chant, even an organ. Then the building slowly slipping beneath the rising waters.  

I also loved “Footsteps in the Snow” as Debussy captured halting steps perfectly and the crunch of a boot as you break the frozen barrier.

Evren pushed the piano at St. Paul’s to extremes. There were spots in the Kurtag where I’d lean forward, straining to hear as he played just this side of perceptible. Other times, like in the Brahms encore, he seemed to command an entire orchestra at his fingertips, filling the room with a wash of sound.

I loved how he played the Schumann attacca – without pause - moving directly into it from the Kurtág. It shouldn’t have worked, yet somehow it did. Schumann’s Carnaval felt to me like walking through a crowded party, moving between groups, saying hello to old friends.

It was a fabulous program of a few dozen miniatures that worked as whole - a kind of extended artistic statement. Bravo.  

‍David Yang, Artistic Director