Paderewski Festival 2018 – Gala Recital by pianist Kate Liu

by Lyn Bronson
November 3, 2018

Image result for kate liu, piano - images

Last night we had the pleasure of hearing the exciting young pianist, Kate Liu, in an astonishing performance that combined blazing virtuosity with a rare subtlety of expressive magic that drew us into her world and held us spellbound for the better part of two hours. Since the occasion was the Gala Artist Recital in the Ballroom of the Paso Robles Inn that closes the Paderewski Festival every year, it was no surprise that the opening work on her program was a work by Paderewski, the Mélodie, Op. 16, No. 2. Read full story →

Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Classical Era, Piano, Romantic Era

Paderewski Youth Competition 2018 — Awards Concert

by Lyn Bronson
November 3, 2018

Noelle Hadsall, Andy Shen, Suri Kim, Simon Liu & Max Afifi

A large audience was on hand Saturday afternoon in the Grand Ballroom of the Paso Robles Inn to hear the young winners of the Paderewski Youth Piano Competition. Joel Peterson acknowledged the donors and benefactors of the festival and introduced the Consul General of the Republic of Poland, Jarosław J. Łasiński. Read full story →

Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Classical Era, Piano

Aptos Keyboard Series at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Divine in Aptos presents pianist Robyn Carmichael

by Lyn Bronson
October 15, 2018

Pianist Robyn Carmichael

The Episcopal Church of St. John the Divine at 125 Canterbury Drive in Aptos has recently become an important venue for music events. The Reverend Tracy J. Wells Miller, who prefers to be addressed as “Mother Tracy,” was on hand yesterday to welcome music lovers who had come to hear pianist Robyn Carmichael present a piano recital on the newly-acquired, brand-new, Kawai semi concert grand piano. Although this event was an inaugural celebration for the new piano, acquired through the generosity of donors, Mother Tracy also pointed with pride to the recently-installed tracker organ, which had been acquired from another church and undergone significant renovation. It also will be celebrated and honored in an inaugural organ recital event coming up in the very near future. Read full story →

Archived in these categories: Classical Era, Piano, Romantic Era

Chamber Music Monterey Bay opens with Van Kuijk Quartet

by Lyn Bronson
October 7, 2018

CMMB opened its 2018-2019 season at Sunset Center last night with a performance by the Van Kuijk Quartet. These young musicians charmed us with their youthful exuberance, instrumental mastery and compelling rendering of the three works performed during the evening’s concert. In case you were wondering how Kuijk is pronounced, it is very simple — “Kuijk” is pronounced like “Quick.” The founder of the quartet is violinist Nicolas Van Kuijk, who despite his Dutch-appearing name is French. In fact the other members of the quartet, violinist Sylvain Favre-Bulle, violist Emmanuel François and cellist François Robin, are also French. Read full story →

Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Chamber music, Chamber Music Monterey Bay, Classical Era

Vienna Transfigured

by Dr. Gary Lemco
August 5, 2018

The “City of my Dreams,” Vienna, provided the spectacular venue for the last of the [email protected] concert series, 2018, Saturday, August 4 at the Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton. Music by Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, and Schoenberg found vibrant, uplifting realization by ensembles thoroughly engaged in style and temperament, concluding the program not so much by frantic applause, but by that thoughtful, mesmerized quiet that followed the long-held, evaporating chords from Schoenberg’s 1899 sextet after the poem by Richard Dehmel. Read full story →

Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Classical Era, Romantic Era