St. Mary’s College of Maryland musician-in-residence Brian Ganz will perform his only full-length solo recital of the fall semester on Dec. 11 at 8 p.m. in the Auerbach Auditorium, St. Mary’s Hall. The program will include works by Frédéric Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven and Claude Debussy. General admission is $15. For further information call (240) 895-4498 or visit www.smcm.edu/music/concert_schedule. St. Mary’s College is located at 18952 E. Fisher Road, St. Mary’s City, Md. 20686.
“The evening recital is a chance to bring together the various strands we’ve explored in noon concerts into one tapestry,” said Ganz. “I’ll finish the program with a piece I’ve played very little at St. Mary’s College: the rousing Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise of Chopin. The polonaise is a work of sparkling virtuosity and plenty of pop, and it’s preceded by one of the most serene and intimate of Chopin’s pieces. Together they contrast marvelously and make a great finale.”
Ganz began his “Extreme Chopin” quest to perform all of Frédéric Chopin’s works three and a half years ago. His sold out recital at the Music Center at Strathmore launched Ganz’s ambitious endeavor to perform the approximately 250 works of Chopin over the next decade. The next concerts in the series will take place at Strathmore on Feb. 7 and 8, 2015.
Ganz has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Baltimore and the National Symphonies, the City of London Sinfonia, and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. He has performed in many of the world’s major concert halls and has played under the baton of such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, Jerzy Semkow and Yoel Levi. A critic for La Libre Belgique wrote of Ganz’s work: “We don’t have the words to speak of this fabulous musician who lives music with a generous urgency and brings his public into a state of intense joy.”