(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- A team of 18 pianists from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University is set to perform a concert of music by composers from across the globe at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City on Monday, May 8 at 7:30pm.
Rutgers professor and pianist Min Kwon of Harding Township, NJ, is the artistic director and curator of the event, presented by The Douglas and Inyoung Boyd Foundation. Kwon says she looks forward to presenting such an unexpected program.
“So much of the standard repertoire for our instrument comes from a somewhat concentrated area of the world,” Kwon says, “but our students truly represent countries and cultures from around the globe. This concert gives us an opportunity to showcase music from students’ home countries and to present a program that is inextricably linked to who our piano students are.”
The Weill Recital Hall concert will feature works by Denmark’s Carl Nielsen, Cuba’s Ernesto Lecuona, and China’s Tan Dun, among others, as well as compositions by two of the Mason Gross pianists themselves. Each pianist selected his or her own music, Kwon says, yielding a program that mixes composers who are relatively well-known to U.S. audiences, such as Manuel De Falla of Spain, with composers barely known at all outside their home country, such as Francisco Buencamino of the Philippines.
And the setting, according to Kwon, couldn’t be better.
“New York City is the place that is most fitting for this particular program, as it is probably the most culturally diverse city in the world,” she says. “Where better to present and share our own diversity as a piano program and a school?”
Participating pianists are: Abraham Alinea (Philippines), Francesco Barfoed (incoming student - Denmark), Alexander Beridze (alumnus – Georgia; pictured), Carl Patrick Bolleia (United States), Michael Bulechev-Okser (Russia), Mijung Cho (Korea), YunKyung Rachel Choo (Korea), Hui Diao (China), Junko Ichikawa (alumna - Japan), Anna Keiserman (Russia), George Lykogiannis (Greece), Kevin Madison (United States), Michael Maronich (United States), Nuno Marques (Portugal), Patricio Molina (Chile), Erikson Rojas (Cuba), Enriqueta Somarriba (Spain), Shimrit Tsiporen (Israel), and I-Wen Wang (Taiwan).
Tickets for the concert are $40. More information is available by calling 212-247-7800 or by visiting carnegiehall.org.
Can’t make it to Manhattan? Rutgers pianists will present a free preview concert on campus at 5:00pm, Monday, May 1, 2017, at Schare Recital Hall in Marryott Music Building, 81 George Street (near Route 18) on Douglass Campus in New Brunswick. Please note that this venue is not handicap-accessible. No tickets are required.
About Mason Gross School of the Arts
Founded in 1976, Mason Gross School of the Arts is the flagship public arts conservatory of New Jersey. Part of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, the school is home to the departments of Dance, Music, Theater, and Visual Arts as well as the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions, Mason Gross Extension Division, Rutgers Arts Online, and the Rutgers Filmmaking Center. Faculty and alumni rosters include arts professionals recognized nationally and internationally, including Kristin Davis, Calista Flockhart, Sebastian Stan, Cleo Mack, William Pope.L, Alice Aycock, Sean Jones, and Cristina Pato.
PHOTO: Alexander Beridze at Carnegie Hall. Beridze, a native of Georgia, will perform with 17 other Mason Gross pianists in a concert of international music set for May 8 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Photo by Larry Levanti for Mason Gross School of the Arts.
