Pianist Ursula Oppens Gives Recitals, Masterclasses, And Serves And More, Summer 2022

This year the highly regarded pianist Ursula Oppens returns to multiple summer music festivals in Europe and the United States. She will be giving recitals, participating as juror, and leading masterclasses.

This past week found her traveling to the 28th New Orleans International Piano Competition, and from there to Amalfi, Italy, to the Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival. Ms. Oppens appears in recital with her companion, the esteemed American pianist Jerome Lowenthal on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at the Maiori-Chiesa di S. Domenico (Via Roma, 84010 Maiori SA, Italy), 9:00 p.m. (GMT+2). The program includes excerpts from Fanny Mendelssohn's Das Jahr; Frederic Rzewski's Rondo; Mozart's Rondo in A minor, K. 511, and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream by Felix Mendelssohn.

From July 31st to August 2nd, she participates in the Music Fest Perugia in Perugia and, under the auspices of the same festival, in Florence from August 6th to 9th. After that, Ms. Oppens returns to the States for the 2022 Vivace International Music Festival, in Wilmington, North Carolina, from August 11 - 14, 2022.

On Sunday afternoon, August 21, 2022, 2 p.m. Ms. Oppens returns to the Masterworks Series at Bargemusic with the following program:

Mozart Rondo in A minor, K. 511

Rzewski Rondo

Schubert Sonata in A minor, Op. 42 D 845

Tickets at $35 are available for purchase at: https://www.bargemusic.org/concert/august21at2-ursula-oppens-mozart-rzewski-schubert/. For this in-person concert, Bargemusic is asking all audience members, staff to stay masked, for more information, please visit Bargemusic's website: https://www.bargemusic.org/concert/august21at2-ursula-oppens-mozart-rzewski-schubert/.

Ursula Oppens, a legend among American pianists, is widely admired particularly for her original and perceptive readings of new music, but also for her knowing interpretations of the standard repertoire. No other artist alive today has commissioned and premiered more new works for the piano that have entered the permanent repertoire.

A prolific and critically acclaimed recording artist with five Grammy nominations to her credit, Ms. Oppens is renowned for her cult classic The People United Will Never Be Defeated by the late iconoclastic composer Frederic Rzewski. That 1979 release, for the Vanguard label, marked her first Grammy nomination. In 2016 she put out a new recording of The People United Will Never Be Defeated, also nominated for a Grammy, and earlier Grammy nominations were for Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano; Oppens Plays Carter; a recording of the complete piano works of Elliott Carter for Cedille Records (also named a "Best of the Year" selection by The New York Times long-time music critic Allan Kozinn); and Piano Music of Our Time featuring compositions by John Adams, Elliott Carter, Julius Hemphill, and Conlon Nancarrow for the Music and Arts label. Ms. Oppens recently added to her extensive discography by releasing Fantasy: Oppens plays Kaminsky in 2021 for the Cedille label. She also recorded Piano Songs, a collaboration with Meredith Monk, as well as a two-piano CD for Cedille Records devoted to Visions de l'Amen of Oliver Messiaen and Debussy's En blanc et noir performed with pianist Jerome Lowenthal.

During the pandemic, Ms. Oppens has concertized both live and online. In May 2021 she was chosen to re-open the New York City Bargemusic series in person. Performing works by Chopin, Carter, and a newly composed piece entitled Friendship, by Frederic Rzewski, prompted Harry Rolnick of concertonet to review in glowing terms:

[in] her extraordinary one-hour concert last night...her fingers danced over the difficulties of Carter's Caténaires with the same effortless elegance as she played five Chopin Nocturnes. And she gives her music the oomph, the bravado, the vivacity which they deserve...Her virtuosity goes hand in hand-literally-with her understanding. And yes, her attitude, her beatific smile after each work, her nuances that we in the audience are the important visitors, make a concert a thing of joy. But most important for this listener is that she can take the most supposedly recondite algorithmic composition and make it absolutely logical. Not logical philosophically or structurally, but with a logic of understanding.

As possibly the world's most accomplished extant of Frederic Rzewski, I am certain her performance of Rzewski's Friendship was authoritative...Ms. Oppens creates the universe of great artists without judgments, only the obligation to offer her frequently ineffable artistry.

-May 22, 2021

In early 2019, Ms. Oppens performed a recital at Merkin Concert Hall for a celebration of her 75th birthday, inaugurating the Kaufman Music Center's newest series, Only at Merkin with Terrance McKnight. Her program showcased all works written for her by Elliott Carter and John Corigliano, and gave the world premiere of a piano quintet by Laura Kaminsky-commissioned by the pianist for the occasion with production support from the Newburgh Institute for The Arts & Ideas-alongside the Cassatt String Quartet and Tobias Picker's Ursula for solo piano, a birthday present for his dear friend and collaborator.

Of Ms. Oppens' Merkin Hall concert, David Wright of New York Classical Review wrote on February 3, 2019:

Merkin Concert Hall was packed Saturday night...for a celebration of the pianist's 75th birthday on its exact date. Here one was especially aware of the quality of Oppens' tone-full and projected even in the softest pianissimo, and capable of producing tremendous impact in forte chords without sounding pinched or banged. Her pedaling was unusually subtle for new-music interpretation, managing resonances and overlapping tones like an expert Chopin player.

Over the years, Ms. Oppens has premiered works by such leading composers as John Adams, Luciano Berio, William Bolcom, Anthony Braxton, Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, Anthony Davis, John Harbison, Julius Hemphill, David Hertzberg, Laura Kaminsky, Tania Leon, György Ligeti, Erik Lundborg, Witold Lutoslawski, Harold Meltzer, Meredith Monk, Conlon Nancarrow, Tobias Picker, Bernard Rands, Frederic Rzewski, Allen Shawn, Alvin Singleton, Joan Tower, Lois V Vierk, Amy Williams, Christian Wolff, Amnon Wolman, and Charles Wuorinen.

As an orchestral guest soloist, Ms. Oppens has performed with virtually all of the world's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), and the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Milwaukee. Abroad, she has appeared with such ensembles as the Berlin Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Deutsche Symphonie, the Scottish BBC, and the London Philharmonic Orchestras. Ms. Oppens is also an avid chamber musician and has performed with the Arditti, Cassatt, JACK, Juilliard, and Pacifica quartets, among other chamber ensembles.

Ursula Oppens is a Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City; she also joined the faculty of Mannes College, The New School, in fall 2017. In 2019, Ms. Oppens was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New England Conservatory. From 1994 through the end of the 2007-08 academic year she served as John Evans Distinguished Professor of Music at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. In addition, Ms. Oppens has served as a juror for many international competitions, such as the Bachauer, Busoni, Concert Artists Guild, Young Concert Artists, Young Pianists Foundation (Amsterdam), and Cincinnati Piano World Competition. Ms. Oppens lives in New York City.

Born in 1932, pianist Jerome Lowenthal continues to fascinate audiences with his combination of youthful intensity and eloquence born of life-experience. He is a virtuoso of the fingers and emotions.

Mr. Lowenthal made his New York Philharmonic debut in 1963, playing Bartok's Second Piano Concerto. Since then, he has performed virtually everywhere, from the Aleutians to Zagreb. He has appeared as soloist with celebrated conductors including Barenboim, Ozawa, Tilson Thomas, Temirkanov, and Slatkin, and with such giants of the past as Bernstein, Ormandy, Monteux, and Stokowski. Mr. Lowenthal has played sonatas with Itzhak Perlman; piano duos with Ronit Amir (his late wife), Carmel Lowenthal (his daughter), and Ursula Oppens; and quintets with the Lark, Avalon, and Brentano Quartets. He has recorded Two-Piano Music of Messiaen and Debussy with Oppens and Liszt's complete Annés De Pélerinage on a 3-CD set. Other recordings include concertos by Tchaikovsky and Liszt, solo works by Sinding and Bartók, and chamber music by Arensky and Taneyev.

Mr. Lowenthal studied in his native Philadelphia with Olga Samaroff-Stokowski, in New York with William Kapell and Edward Steuermann, and in Paris with Alfred Cortot, meanwhile traveling annually to Los Angeles for coachings with Artur Rubinstein. After winning prizes in three international competitions (Bolzano, Darmstadt, and Brussels), he moved to Jerusalem where he played, taught, and lectured for three years.

Teaching is an important part of Mr. Lowenthal's musical life, including 20years at the Juilliard School and 42 summers at the Music Academy of the West. Mr. Lowenthal has worked with an extraordinary number of gifted pianists, whom he encourages to understand the music they play in a wide aesthetic and cultural perspective - and to project it with the freedom which that perspective allows.

To post a comment, you must register and login.