(MAURICETOWN, NJ) -- Pianist Norma Meyer, with renowned bassist Ranaan Meyer as special guest artist, will be the featured performers at Maurice River Music’s next salon concert—the final salon concert of the 2017-18 season—on Sunday, April 15, at 2:30pm, at a residence in the Mauricetown, NJ area.
The program will commemorate the centenary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth and of Claude Debussy’s death. Meyer will perform early, rarely heard piano music by Bernstein: selections from Anniversaries—short musical portraits of people who figured in the composer’s life—and Four Sabras—a collection of short pieces. She will also perform selections from the first book of Debussy’s Préludes, his complete Children’s Corner, L. 113, and a selection from his suite Pour le piano, L. 95. Ranaan Meyer will join Norma Meyer for additional pieces by Bernstein and Debussy.
Pianist-conductor Norma Meyer is making her 11th Maurice River Music salon concert appearance and her first as featured recitalist. She is a founding member of Piano4 (www.piano4.org), a four-piano quartet, and has toured with them throughout the United States since 2001. Tracks from their CD, Piano4 Christmas, have been aired nationally. This CD includes arrangements featuring Bunny Sigler, an internationally-known, Grammy-Award- winning Philadelphia vocalist. In this venture, she has worked as co-arranger/composer as well, along with performances with her son.
She has performed at the Honeywell Center in Wabash and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia for the past four years as the resident pianist for the WaBASS programs directed by her son Ranaan Meyer. A respected collaborative pianist, her current work also includes performances with Ranaan Meyer, cellist Nancy Stokking, soprano Sarah Joanne Davis and cellist Jonathan Beiler of The Philadelphia Orchestra in sonata and ensemble performances. Venues of recent seasons have included Verizon and Carnegie Halls.
Additional performances include recitals with Ranaan Meyer, featuring his 5 pieces for Double Bass and Piano, Piano4 performances in West Virginia, Arizona and Michigan, La Musique des Amis (with violist Judy Barnett, clarinetist Paula Rothman, and featuring soprano Charlotte Barnett, soprano), as soloist with the Ambler Symphony, and in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Jonathan and Lynne Beiler with the Main Line Symphony.
A former orchestra director in the Washington Township Public Schools, Meyer continues her lifelong commitment to music education in outreach programs, as an accompanist and as a collaborative coach.
Ranaan Meyer, collaborating here with his mother and making his second Maurice River Music salon concert appearance, began his musical studies on the piano at age four, on the cello at age 9 and the double bass at age 11. He attended the Manhattan School of Music for three years, after which he transferred to the Curtis Institute of Music, graduating in 2003. He has worked with such great double bass teachers and performers as Rufus Reid, Hal Robinson, Gary Karr, Neil Courtney, Larry Grenadier, and others.
Ranaan has appeared regularly in the double bass section of orchestras such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, and The Philadelphia Orchestra.
In addition, his studies at Curtis led him to the formation of Time for Three with fellow students and violinist Nick Kendall and Zach DePue. He has found himself increasingly in demand as a collaborative musician and soloist, in addition to creating unique new works for Time for Three, the Ranaan Meyer Band, and other instrumentations.
An accomplished jazz musician, Ranaan has performed with Branford Marsalis, Jane Monheight, Victor Lewis, Jason Moran, Mark O’Connor, Ari Hoenig, Duane Eubanks, Mickey Roker, Rodney Green, and others. He produced directed, and performed in the very first Washington Township Jazz Festival at age 19, which was broadcast live on Philadelphia’s WRTI.
Ranaan is an avid teacher, and has held adjunct double bass professorships at Princeton University and the University of Delaware. He has spent several summers teaching with Hal Robinson, Principal Bass of The Philadelphia Orchestra, at the Strings International Music Festival in Bryn Mawr, PA and has led the double bass program. He has also taught at the Intermountain Suzuki Camp in Sandy, UT, and Mark O’Connor’s String Camp in San Diego, CA.
He also spends his time building Ranaan Meyer Music, a company dedicated to the universal education of double bass players. He formed a camp of his own in June 2008—Wabass, in Wabash, IN. Wabass teachers include Robinson of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Curtis and Eric Larson, double bassist with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The camp is free to the nine elite double bass students accepted every year. He also publishes The Next Level Bassist, a free online journal dedicated to bass education. He received a Community Partner grant from the American Composers Forum to compose 10 pieces for student musicians in disadvantaged areas and conducted residencies on those pieces starting in the fall of 2013.
Seating is very limited, so reservations are required. Donations to assist in covering expenses will be accepted. To reserve seats, receive directions, or receive more information on the series, please call Maurice River Music at 856-506-0580, e-mail them at info@mauricerivermusic.com, or visit their website at www.mauricerivermusic.com.
