Intimate Audacities: Pianist Changyong Shin in Recital

by Dr. Gary Lemco
November 18, 2019

Changyong Shin

A modest but well-pleased audience hailed pianist Changyong Shin as he concluded his Sunday, November 17 recital for Steinway Society – The Bay Area at the Independence High School auditorium in San Jose. Responding with one encore, Chopin’s Grande valse brillante in E-flat Major, Op. 18, rendered flawlessly, Shin more than confirmed his prowess in music that demands audacity, dexterity, and poetry by such diverse personalities as Beethoven, Chopin, Ravel, and Granados. Shin seems to embody that “smart performer of smart music,” to paraphrase Ned Rorem — that musician whose mind proves as agile as his gifted fingers. The two large works on the program, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109, and Ravel’s daunting Gaspard de la nuit, each required the careful balance of deft articulation and intellectual acumen to bring off manifestation of power and lyric intimacy at the same time.

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

Monterey Symphony – Pianist Kun Woo Paik returns for a Double Header

by Lyn Bronson
November 17, 2019

Pianist Kun Woo Paik & Conductor Max Bragado-Darman

Last night at Sunset Center conductor Max Bragado-Darman and the Monterey Symphony presented its second concert of the 2019-2020 season, and it was quite an unusual program. It featured Korean pianist Kun Woo Paik performing two concertos — Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595 and Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15 in D Minor. Very rarely does a symphonic program contain no other works but a pair of piano concertos, and thereby hangs a tale.

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Archived in these categories: Classical Era, Concerto, Monterey Symphony, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic Era

Pianist Péter Tóth delivers the goods

by Lyn Bronson
November 12, 2019

Hungarian pianist Péter Tóth had a great success last night as he appeared in recital at Hidden Valley. He attracted a capacity audience of loyal fans, and he didn’t disappoint them. Quite to the contrary his virtuoso skills and penetrating musicianship carried the day in a demanding program of works that spanned two and a half centuries.

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

Pianist Vadym Kholodenko in Miami Recital

by Julian Kreeger
November 11, 2019

Vadym Kholodenko

On Friday November 8, 2019, Vadym Kholodenko, Winner of the Gold medal at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition, played an utterly spectacular piano recital at Florida International University’s Wertheim Concert Hall in Miami.

The first half of the recital was devoted to works of Mozart and Beethoven — Mozart’s Fantasia in C Minor, K.475, Beethoven’s Seven Bagatelles, Op. 33 and Rondo a Capriccio,Op.129 (“Rage Over a Lost Penny”). His remarkable range of expressive color and dynamics brought the audience to its feet  with a standing ovation.

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Archived in these categories: Piano, Romantic Era

Carmel Music Society — Modigliani String Quartet

by Lyn Bronson
November 11, 2019

When the members of the Modigliani String Quartet took their final bows yesterday afternoon at Sunset Center in Carmel, we knew that we had just heard quartet playing on the highest and most artistic level. It simply doesn’t get any better than this. Violinists Amaury Coeytaux and Loic Rio, violist P. Laurent Marfang and cellist François Kieffer are celebrating their 15th anniversary playing together, and their their close association has produced such a tight knit ensemble that the music they perform flows seamlessly and effortlessly. This is not to imply that their playing was glib. Quite to the contrary, their playing was full of passion and artistic commitment to the works they perform, and when all the elements came together, as they did yesterday afternoon, it produces performances seemingly inevitable in their purity and technical mastery.

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Archived in these categories: Classical Era, Romantic Era, String quartet