Cue up Yekwon Sunwoo’s recent recording, Liszt, and brace yourself for fireworks. What comes first instead is song. For more than half an hour, nearly everything centers on melodies that once had words, Liszt’s textures, from lace to thunder, spun around them. The first selection
Settle into your seat as the lights go down. Onstage, the piano gleams in a pool of light, its lid raised like a sail. Then the first chord rings out, and the story is underway. A roomful of strangers becomes, for a little while, one
Take a glance at the works pianist Aaron Diehl has planned for his Corvallis concert – works by Roland Hanna, James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and Duke Ellington, among others – and you get the idea that Diehl plans an exploration of the huge role
For South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son, the sonata for piano is “one of the most ultimate forms of classical music.” But the sonata (a composition, usually for a solo instrument or small ensemble, that typically consists of two to four movements) comes in all
Vice President Michael Beachley gives an update on the 2020/2021 season.
Re-imaginings: A Virtual Piano Festival will begin on this website in September.
Recent Steinway Piano Series concerts have showcased the forms of piano sonata and piano variations. In this blog, we have discussed the sonata form as a sort of “hero’s journey,” with variations as more of a kaleidoscopic, transformative exploration of a melody. Now we have
Five years ago, after being wowed by Conrad Tao’s performance, Curtis and I had the great fortune to spend some time afterward with this marvelous pianist. In these moments, we were able to glean some insight into his thoughts on music. Subsequently, Curtis followed him