(BRANCHBURG, NJ) -- The Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) Arts & Design department will present “Songs Without Words,” its next selection in a virtual concert series launched to help defray the cost of private instructional lessons for RVCC music majors. The virtual concert, with performances by cellist Jonathan Spitz and pianist Anna Keiserman, will be streamed live from RVCC’s Edward Nash Theatre on Sunday, March 28 at 2:00pm.
“Songs Without Words” will feature Cello Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 58by Felix Mendelssohn and John Sichel’s 2nd Sonata for Cello and Piano. The performance will be shown on their Facebook page.
The concert is part of the department’s MOZAIKA Concert Series, created to promote multicultural dialogue through the performance of music from the classical canon through the 21st Century.
Cellist Jonathan Spitz has established himself as a leading cellist in the United States with his performances as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral principal. He is the head of string studies at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and serves as professor of cello. Principal cello of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra since 1991, he is a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and principal cello of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra. Spitz has appeared as a soloist with the NJSO on numerous occasions, performing many of the standard cello concertos. He has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall and at colleges and universities throughout the US. An active chamber musician, Spitz was a participant at the Marlboro Music Festival and currently serves on the artist faculty of the Brevard Music Center. A graduate of the Curtis Institute, he performs on a 2012 cello by Grubaugh and Seifert.
Dr. Anna Keiserman is an Assistant Professor of Music at RVCC. On her recent debut album, Russian Mosaic, the pianist offers rarely heard gems by Rachmaninoff, Shchedrin, Smirnov, and Medtner. Her performance credits include Le Poisson Rouge, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and the Fête de La Musique. As a soloist she has performed works by Rachmaninoff, Haydn, Beethoven and Arensky with the Volgograd Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Keiserman’s awards include top prizes in two International Piano Competitions in Russia and the 2017 “Culture and Art” award from the New Russia Cultural Center. She has served as a faculty member at the NYU Steinhardt School of the Arts, at the Rutgers University Extension Division, and at William Paterson University. Dr. Keiserman received degrees from the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music and the University of Minnesota and recently completed her Doctorate in Piano Performance from Rutgers University, earning the Elizabeth Wyckoff Durham Award for academic distinction and excellence in piano performance.
John Sichel, RVCC Associate Professor of Music and co-chair of the College’s Arts & Design department, is an award-winning composer. His 2nd Cello Sonata was written for cellist Ning Tien, who premiered the work in 1997 in China. Describing the piece, Sichel says, “It's one of my crazier, more wild-eyed pieces. The first two movements are songs without words in the literal sense: cryptic, voiceless settings of two famous poems of apocalyptic nature. The “hidden” poems, both by Yeats, are particularly dramatic and frightening, and the music is meant to mirror their emotional impact. The third and final movement is a post-apocalyptic tango—a more modern version of the Medieval dance of death—which keeps erupting without warning into histrionic outbursts and just as suddenly subsiding.”
A post-performance, online discussion with the musicians follows the program. The concerts in the MOZAIKA Concert Series are free of charge, but donations are accepted and will go to the RVCC Applied Music Fund to help the College’s music majors pay for private lessons on their primary instruments.
The concert also will be available for viewing after the initial performance date.
