Saturday, September 11 at 8 pm Pacific
The Illustrated Pianist
Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, a group of pianist/composers have created new works for this imaginative multimedia piano recital. Curated by Nicole Brancato, the cast of San Francisco and New York pianists are accompanied by artist Cory Todd’s adaptive visuals.
Program
This unique multimedia event, assembled by the pianist and composer Nicole Brancato, honors the 2020 centennary of iconic American science-fiction author Ray Bradbury and the seventieth anniversary, this year, of his celebrated story collection. The program comprises distinct new works by composing pianists, including Brancato, Jed Distler, Keisuke Nakagoshi, Monica Chew (played by Jerry Kuderna), Dee Spencer and Nicholas Pavkovic. San Francisco multimedia artist Cory Todd provides projected visuals that morph with the music.
Artists
Nicole Brancato
Guided by her distinct artistic vision, “piano virtuoso” (The Daily Gazette) Nicole Brancato has crafted an imaginative career, merging curation, composition, performance, improvisation, education, and collaboration across the arts. The award-winning young artist has performed throughout America and Europe, with engagements at Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim, and the 92Y, as well as the exciting “underground” venues in New York City and on New York Public Radio. She is a champion of creative and conceptual performance and has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, and on the international network Rai Italia. In all of her endeavors, she creates a connective, intellectual, and provocative experience for her audiences. nicolebrancato.com
Monica Chew
In 2017, Oakland pianist Monica Chew released her first solo album, Tender and Strange, featuring works by Bartók, Janáček, Messiaen, Takemitsu, and Scriabin. A “gifted player with an affinity for deeply sensitive expression” (Whole Note), she has been featured on KPFA and radio stations across the United States. She started composing in 2017 and couldn’t be happier about it. Prior to 2015, she worked nearly a decade as a principal software engineer on security and privacy at Mozilla and Google. She lives in Oakland with her husband, an 1899 Steinway B, a clavichord, and a disused violin. monicachew.com
Jed Distler
Composer/pianist and Steinway Artist Jed Distler taught for more than 20 years at Sarah Lawrence College. Early in his career Distler gained acclaim for his transcriptions of jazz piano solos by Art Tatum and Bill Evans, while his new music piano recitals have offered premieres of works by Virgil Thomson, Richard Rodney Bennett, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Curran, Lois V Vierk, William Schimmel and many more. Distler’s presenting organization ComposersCollaborative, Inc earned a Guinness Record for world’s largest keyboard ensemble, featuring an original work for 175 electronic keyboards. Distler records prolifically for the high-resolution Spirio player piano, while TNC Music released Distler’s most recent solo piano CD “Fearless Monk.” (available from Bandcamp). jeddistler.com
Jerry Kuderna
As a solo recitalist and founding member of the Maybeck Trio, California pianist Jerry Kuderna embraces traditional repertoire and new music with boundless virtuosity and fierce commitment. Well known as a lecture-recitalist at the Berkeley Arts Festival, he has taught at University of Louisville, Princeton, and locally at Diablo Valley College. His affinity for modernist music has led him to write about and premiere works by Milton Babbitt, and his list of first performances includes works by Richard Swift, Alden Jenks, Robert Helps, Ann Callaway, Judith Shatin and Herb Bielawa. Kuderna has appeared in the the Los Angeles SCREAM Festival, on series presented by Earplay and Cal Performances, and as a soloist with the Berkeley Symphony, with whom he gave the West Coast premiere of the Elliot Carter Piano Concerto.
Keisuke Nakagoshi
San Francisco pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi performs regularly with the San Francisco Symphony, having made his solo debut with the orchestra in 2014 with Ingvar Lidholm’s Poesis. He’s also known nationally as part of the Grammy-nominated ZOFO duet, zofoduet.com, which he formed with Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmerman in 2013. Nakagoshi has received training from Emanuel Ax, Gilbert Kalish, Menahem Pressler and Paul Hersh, and is a pianist in residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as well as the pianist in the production team for Opera Parallèle.
Nicholas Pavkovic
California pianist and composer Nicholas Pavkovic is a Sundance Composers Fellow, having composed music for dozens of short and feature films. Pavkovic studied — and taught — at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he received the Highsmith Award for Orchestral Composition. He has written a chamber opera about the mighty ferret Sredni Vashtar. pavkovic.com
Dee Spencer
Dee Spencer is a Professor of Jazz and Musical Theatre in the School of Theatre & Dance at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Dee founded the Jazz Studies degree program in the School of Music at SFSU and served as Director for five years. As an active contributor to the music community, she founded the SFJAZZ education program, and she served as East Bay Center for the Performing Arts program director. Her performance credits encompass a star-studded roster including Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ledisi, Lenny Williams John Handy, Jimmy Scott, Louis Bellson, Clark Terry, Regina Carter, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Bernard Purdie and X-Factor star Jason Brock. Her latest recording “Tranquility” was released in 2018. deespencer.com
Cory Todd
Cory Todd is a multimedia artist and engineer living in Berkeley. His work combines programming, audio and video production, real-time data, and other experimental practices to explore themes of emotionality, abstraction, and memory. Projects have included national and international tours with renown artists of various disciplines, collaboration in a multitude of settings, and extensive studio work. georgecorytodd.com
Friday, September 17 at 8 pm Pacific
Cross Rhythms
When the lockdown started, pianist Sarah Cahill gathered pianists from across California via Zoom for a weekly sharing of ideas and work-in-progress. We’ll hear results from this collaboration in an exuberant group concert of new and newly-discovered music that features works by women composers and composers of color.
Program
Eleanor Alberga (1949-)
Three-Day Mix
Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers, piano
Terry Riley (1935-)
Etude from the Old Country
Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers, piano
Nathanial Dett (1882-1943)
Bottoms
Jerry Kuderna, piano
James Newton (1953-)
Looking Above, The Faith of Joseph
Gloria Cheng, piano
Wang Lu (1982-) and Anthony Cheung (1982-)
Recombinant
Gloria Cheng, piano
Fred Onovwerosuoke (1960-)
Twelve Studies in African Rhythm, Book I
Monica Chew, piano
Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969)
Selections from Ten Concert Etudes for Piano
Allegra Chapman, piano
Adolphus Hailstork (1941-)
Scherzo No. 1
Allegra Chapman, piano
Artists
Sarah Cahill
Berkeley pianist Sarah Cahill has commissioned and premiered over sixty compositions for solo piano and has received dedications from ohn Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Yoko Ono, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. One of the most active new music pianists in the Bay Area, Cahill’s recent and upcoming livestream concerts include performances presented by the Bang on a Can Marathon, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, San Francisco Symphony’s SoundBox series, Old First Concerts, Harrison House and Musaics of the Bay. Cahill’s wide discography includes the 2017 release Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley, a four-CD set that includes world premiere recordings of commissioned works composed in honor of Riley’s 80th birthday. Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, focuses on the relationships between classical music and new music and can be heard Sunday evenings on KALW in San Francisco. Cahill is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory. saracahill.com
Gloria Cheng
Los Angeles pianist Gloria Cheng has been a recitalist at the William Kapell Festival, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Ojai Music Festival (where she first appeared in 1984 with Pierre Boulez), and on the L.A.-based Piano Spheres series. As a soloist with the L.A. Philharmonic, she performed under Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez. She has premiered countless works that include Esa-Pekka Salonen's Dichotomie, John Adams' Hallelujah Junction, Steven Stucky's Piano Sonata, and John Williams’s Prelude and Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra. Ms. Cheng received a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Performance, and her film, MONTAGE: Great Film Composers and the Piano, aired on PBS SoCal and was awarded a 2018 Emmy. She is on the faculty of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
Monica Chew
In 2017, Oakland pianist Monica Chew released her first solo album, Tender and Strange, featuring works by Bartók, Janáček, Messiaen, Takemitsu, and Scriabin. A “gifted player with an affinity for deeply sensitive expression” (Whole Note), she has been featured on KPFA and radio stations across the United States. She started composing in 2017 and couldn’t be happier about it. Prior to 2015, she worked nearly a decade as a principal software engineer on security and privacy at Mozilla and Google. She lives in Oakland with her husband, an 1899 Steinway B, a clavichord, and a disused violin. monicachew.com
Jerry Kuderna
As a solo recitalist and founding member of the Maybeck Trio, California pianist Jerry Kuderna embraces traditional repertoire and new music with boundless virtuosity and fierce commitment. Well known as a lecture-recitalist at the Berkeley Arts Festival, he has taught at University of Louisville, Princeton, and locally at Diablo Valley College. His affinity for modernist music has led him to write about and premiere works by Milton Babbitt, and his list of first performances includes works by Richard Swift, Alden Jenks, Robert Helps, Ann Callaway, Judith Shatin and Herb Bielawa. Kuderna has appeared in the the Los Angeles SCREAM Festival, on series presented by Earplay and Cal Performances, and as a soloist with the Berkeley Symphony, with whom he gave the West Coast premiere of the Elliot Carter Piano Concerto.
Regina Myers
Regina Myers studied piano performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Mills College, where she focused on new and experimental music under the guidance of pianist Marc Shapiro, ensemble leader/composer Steed Cowart and percussion master William Winant. In 2004 she founded the concert series/performing collective New Keys to surface and promote the newest and most innovative music for the piano. Regina prides herself on expanding the reach of new music by commissioning new works and relishes working with emerging composers as well as keeping seminal new music masterpieces alive. reginamusic.com
Saturday, September 25 at 8 pm Pacific
Prog to Bach and Bach Again
Stephen Prutsman explores texture and architecture, juxtaposing Bach with transcriptions of classics by Gentle Giant, Yes, and Genesis.
Program
Gentle Giant
The Advent of Panurge
J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Italian Concerto, BWV 971
Yes
Sound Chaser
J. S. Bach
Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 870
Genesis
Supper’s Ready
All proceeds from this concert benefit the Autism Society, San Francisco/Bay Area, helping to improve the lives of all affected by autism.
Artist
Stephen Prutsman
Moving easily from classical to jazz to world music styles as a pianist and composer,
the San Francisco-based Stephen Prutsman continues to explore and seek common ground and relationships in the
music of all cultures and languages. In his teens and early 20s he was the keyboard
player for several art rock groups including Cerberus and Vysion, as well as a solo jazz
pianist playing in many southern California clubs and lounges. He was a proud winner of
television’s “The Gong Show” in 1976.
In the early 90s his career as a classical
pianist was launched after receiving the Avery Fisher Career Grant and winning medals at
the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth Piano Competitions. Since then Stephen has performed
the classical concerto repertoire as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras
and his classical discography includes acclaimed recordings of the Barber and McDowell
concerti. Solo piano recording projects have included Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, an
album of Russian masterworks, and a CD of jazz piano originals entitled
Passengers.
Prutsman has served as an Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the
Artistic Director of the Cartagena International Festival of Music. He’s also had a
years-long collaboration with the Kronos Quartet which has resulted in over 40
arrangements and compositions for them. As a pianist or arranger outside of the
classical music world he has collaborated with such diverse personalities as Tom Waits,
Rokia Traore, Joshua Redman, Jon Anderson of “YES” and Asha Bhosle.
Passionate for participating in the greater good for families touched by autism, Stephen is involved as an active board member of several local and national Autism advocacy organizations. He co-founded the non-profit “Autism Fun Bay Area,” whose mission is to promote and create enjoyable “Azure” events: artistic and recreational environments for people on the spectrum and their families. Azure performances are now presented in many parts of the U.S., Canada and the developing world, which Stephen travels to when possible.
For more information about Mr. Prutsman, please visit stephenprutsman.com.
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