 |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
Internationally-known Polish Pianist to play at TSU on Sunday, February 19, 2012.
French born, Polish raised pianist Graciella Kowalczyk will play a free piano concert at TSU in the Cox/Lewis Theater on Sunday, February 19, at 4:00 p.m. The concert is sponsored by the Steinway Piano Gallery and the TSU Department of Music. Dr. Kowalczyk has appeared in concerts and recitals as a soloist in over fifteen countries and four continents, including the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, Poland; Sergei Rachmaninov Concert Hall in Moscow, Russia; Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria; and the Bellini Conservatory in Palermo, Italy. She holds prizes in competitions in Italy, Russia, Poland, and the United States. Her recital will include selections by Grieg, Rachmaninoff, and Chopin. In honor of Black Music History month, Dr. Kowalczyk will also play a selection by Tennessee composer, Clarence Cameron White. Visit her website at www.graciellakowalczyk.com
Now through February 26, Steinway Piano Gallery of Nashville will offer substantial savings on all new, used, and factory restored Steinway, Boston, Essex upright and grand pianos with ebony satin finish.
The timeless black satin piano hits all the right notes for romance!
Call 615-373-5901 to speak to a representative for me details!
Tweet
|
|||||||||||||
Belmont’s Jazz Piano Concert Series 
The inaugural concert of Belmont’s new Jazz Piano Concert Series will feature Billy Childs at 7:30 p.m. in Massey Concert Hall at Belmont University on Tuesday, January 10th.
The Belmont Jazz Piano series is sponsored by the Steinway Piano Gallery of Nashville.
BILLY CHILDS BIO
Billy Childs was born in Los Angeles on March 8th, 1957. Having demonstrated an aptitude for piano as early as age six, Childs developed rapidly, and at age sixteen entered the USC-sponsored Community School of the Performing Arts, studying theory with Marienne Uszler and piano with John Weisenfluh. In 1975, he entered USC as a composition major, graduating four years later with a bachelor of music in composition under the tutelage of Robert Linn.
Since then Mr. Childs has received a number of orchestral commissions from, among others: Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Kronos Quartet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the American Brass Quintet, and the Dorian Wind Quintet.
After apprenticing with Freddie Hubbard and J.J. Johnson in the late seventies and early eighties, Childs’ solo jazz recording career began in 1988, when he released Take For Example, This… the first of four critically acclaimed albums on the Windham Hill Jazz label. He followed that album with Twilight Is Upon Us (1989), His April Touch (1992), and Portrait Of A Player (1993). His next album, I’ve Known Rivers on Stretch/GRP (now Stretch/Concord) was released in 1995, followed by The Child Within, released on the Shanachie record label in 1996. Most recently, Mr. Childs has recorded two volumes of jazz/chamber music – Lyric, Vol. 1 (2006) and Autumn: In Moving Pictures, Vol. 2 (2010) – music which is an amalgam of jazz and classical elements, developed with his ensemble through rehearsal, performance, and recording, over the course of ten years.
Thus far, in his career, Childs has garnered ten Grammy nominations and three Grammy awards: two for best instrumental composition (Into the Light from Lyric and The Path Among The Trees from Autumn: In Moving Pictures) and one for best arrangement accompanying a vocalist. In 2009, Childs was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2006 was awarded a Chamber Music America composer’s grant.
As a pianist Childs has recently performed with, among others, Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Kronos Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Jack DeJohnette, Ron Carter, the Ying String Quartet, the American Brass Quintet, and Chris Botti. In January 2010, The Detroit Symphony (Leonard Slatkin conducting) premiered Childs’ Concerto For Violin And Orchestra with Regina Carter as soloist. Upcoming commissions include a new piece for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and another new work for the Kronos String Quartet.
Tweet
As part of our mission to expand the limited repertoire for violin and cello, the Elliston Duo is collaborating with local composer Mark Volker on a newly commissioned work. The piece will be premiered on January 5th, 2012 at the Steinway Recital Hall in Nashville. Mark Volker is the head of the composition department at Belmont University, and we are very excited to share this new piece with you!
Elliston Duo
The Elliston Duo takes its name from Nashville’s own Elliston Place, just west of downtown near Vanderbilt University. Like violinist Patricia Rudisill and cellist Nicholas Gold, it’s a hip neighborhood with a youthful vibe, and is home to the group’s rehearsal space.
Rudisill and Gold began performing together shortly after both relocated to Nashville in early 2010. They quickly discovered an affinity in artistic and career goals and have gained an impressive reputation as a powerful and dynamic performing ensemble. Emotional and intimate, fresh and exciting, every performance packs a punch audiences don’t forget.
The Elliston Duo has been featured twice on the programs of WPLN (Nashville Public Radio). They were featured artists for the Nexus Chamber Masterworks Series, as well as at Austin Peay State University, Western Kentucky University, University of Miami, and West End United Methodist Church.
Rudisill and Gold both enjoy mentoring the next generation of artists—from the youngest Suzuki Method students to master classes at the college level. Both maintain private studios for students in the Middle Tennessee area.
Dedicated to the advancement of the violin and cello duo canon, the Elliston Duo is commissioning new works and also adapts old classics for their repertoire, which spans the most serious classical works for duo to country, Latin, and contemporary favorites. Regardless of style, the duo never fails to present music making of the highest caliber. www.ellistonduo.com
Mark Volker
Recently named 2011 Composer of the Year by the Tennessee Music Teachers Association, Mark Volker is the Coordinator of Composition and Assistant Professor of Music at the Belmont University School of Music, where he teaches applied composition and music theory. Known for his colorful harmonic language and orchestration, in addition to his facility with both electronic and traditional instrumentations, Mark’s music has been performed and recorded all over the world, and he has received awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, SCI, and ERMmedia. From his operas for the Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players and the Young Opera Company of New England, to his steady stream of chamber music commissions and colorful orchestral works, to his experimental works for live instruments with interactive electronics, Mark’s output extremely vibrant and varied. You can hear his music the recently released Centaur Records CD, Elemental Forces, as well as on volume 3 of ERMmedia’s Masterworks of the New Era series. His acclaimed ballet based on The Diary of Anne Frank is currently being performed by members of the Nashville Ballet in schools around Middle Tennessee and he will have a work for wind ensemble premiered in the spring, with subsequent performances by the various wind ensembles that make up the commissioning consortium.
Mark is also an active guitarist, specializing in the performance of new music for classical and electric guitar in chamber settings. He has premiered numerous chamber and solo works and performs regularly with the Luna Nova Ensemble.
A native of Buffalo, NY, Mark holds degrees from the Ithaca College School of Music (BM), the Cincnnati College-Conservatory of Music (MM), and the University of Chicago (PhD). Prior to his appointment at Belmont,Mark taught for several years at Colgate University in upstate New York.
He lives in Franklin, TN with his wife Alyssa and two children, Molly and Jacob. Find more at markvolker.com.
Two Mysteries for String Duo
When my friend Nick Gold presented me with the opportunity to write a piece for him and Patti Rudisill to perform, I was very enthusiastic, as I have come to know Nick as a fantastic cellist (and subsequently Patti as an equally fine violinist), and I have never written for the precise instrumentation of violin/cello duo. I am generally very fond of these instruments and their unique capabilities. For some time, I had also been looking for the opportunity to revisit in a chamber music setting some of the musical ideas I had explored in my organ suite, In the Presence of Mystery. I am very happy with that piece as it is, but I had been thinking that some of its musical and expressive ideas could be very effective in a more intimate instrumental setting. I felt that a piece for the Elliston Duo was the perfect opportunity.
The “mystery” of that piece’s title is a reference to the intense and meditative spiritual searching that I wished to illustrate musically, as well as to the very mysterious power of music itself, which of course is explored to some degree every time music is created. In particular, I wanted to explore the power of harmony to transform simple melodic ideas into varying and complex emotions.
While I retained the basic musical themes and general forms from the earlier work in Two Mysteries of String Duo, I enjoyed reworking the development of those themes to suit the idiosyncrasies of the violin and cello. Many of the harmonies and specific patterns are different as well, both to better suit the strengths of the violin and cello, and in response to alternatives musical ideas that emerged during the compositional process. I feel that each time I make a compositional decision, there are one or more other valid alternatives that I usually do not get the opportunity to explore. In this case, I was able to do just that. The result is a piece that is at once brand new and a re-imagining of previous work. Each of the two movements is set in a broad, three-part form. This gives them the sense of expansive meditations on their “mysteries,” the first focused and intense, the second somber and yearning.
Tweet
|
||||||||||||||||
From Now until 12/31/11, Steinway Piano Gallery of Nashville will have special incentives on floor models that need to be liquidated before the end of 2011. By making your purchasing decision now you can save THOUSANDS on new, used, demo pianos, school loaners, rental & discontinued pianos. We have special manufacturer pricing and special financing terms!
We have amazing savings and rebates on all new pianos as well as player pianos. We are the industry leader in player piano technology! Come and see how YOUR SMART PHONE can play a piano!! Not only can YOUR phone play a piano but any of YOUR web enabled devices can (iPad, laptop, iPhone, Android, etc)!!
Tweet
|
||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
