Pianist Brian Ganz PIANOTALK Series Returns to SMCM

St. Mary's College of MD Musician-in Residence Brian Ganz will resume his popular "PianoTalk" series on the Zoom platform.

He will offer two live PianoTalks this month, the first on April 20th (on Ludwig van Beethoven) and the second on April 30th (on Frederic Chopin). For each event he will play a major piece from each composer and discuss its significance. Both PianoTalks will premiere at 12 noon and will be free and open to all who register for them, and both will later be available through streaming.

To register for April 20th, entitled "Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata: What Lies Within," visit this link: bit.ly/SMCMApril20. To register for April 30, "Chopin's Revolutionary... Nocturne!" use this link: bit.ly/SMCMApril30 For more information call (240) 895-4498.

"It is so wonderful to return to live, real time music making after so many months," pianist Ganz said. "Sharing pre-recorded music certainly has its place, but nothing can replace the excitement and electricity of live music," he continued. "The April 20 PianoTalk will feature one of Beethoven's most anguished and heartfelt works, the Pathétique Sonata. It's a perfect vehicle to express what many of us have been feeling through this incredibly difficult year. I argue that Beethoven was the first to give full expression to that dimension of human experience, and that in doing so he began to pave the way from the Classical to the Romantic era. I'll discuss that and then play the entire sonata."

On April 30th Ganz will focus on Chopin. Ganz said, "We'll take a look at a work that Chopin may well have intended as a response to Poland's attempted revolution in November of 1830. Most of us know the Revolutionary Etude, but this nocturne I'm calling 'Revolutionary' is just as powerful in its own way."

Ganz hopes to be the first to perform all the works of Chopin. He began his "Extreme Chopin" quest at Strathmore in North Bethesda in January of 2011 in a sold out recital that launched the ambitious campaign to perform the composer's approximately 250 works. The 10th recital in the series, Chopin and the Growth of Genius, took place on February 1, 2020.

This year's recital was broadcast virtually in December, and will be rebroadcast on April 25. It can be heard at this link: https://nationalphilharmonic.org/event/music-that-connects-us-all-encore/. Ganz will return to the stage of Strathmore for the 11th recital of the series on February 26, 2022.

Ganz has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, The National Philharmonic, the Baltimore and the National Symphonies, the City of London Sinfonia, and L'Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. He has performed in many of the world's major concert halls and has played under the baton of such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, Jerzy Semkow and Yoel Levi. A critic for La Libre Belgique wrote of Ganz's work: "We don't have the words to speak of this fabulous musician who lives music with a generous urgency and brings his public into a state of intense joy."

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