Classical Pianists Brian Ganz and Beverly Babcock will present a free concert of Chopin and Gershwin compositions that radiate the loves of these two young composers at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Tuesday, April 10 at Noon. Photo credit: Jay Mallin
St. Mary’s City, MD – On Tuesday, April 10 at noon, St. Mary’s College of MD Musician-in-Residence Brian Ganz will join music faculty colleague Beverly Babcock in a performance of two beloved works for piano and orchestra, Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The program, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Auerbach Auditiorium of St. Mary’s Hall on the college campus. For more information call (240) 895-4498 or visit http://www.smcm.edu/events/organizer/music-department/.
“Although we call the F minor Concerto Chopin’s 2nd, it’s really the first one he composed,” Ganz said. “He was only 19 years old when he began composing it, finishing it at age 20,” he continued. “So he was a true peer of many of our students when he composed this incredibly beautiful work. And he was full of youthful passion at the time, because he was in love with a classmate at the Warsaw Conservatory, but never expressed his feelings to her. He poured them into this concerto instead. And Gershwin was only 25 when he wrote Rhapsody in Blue, so Beverly and I are playing two of the earliest masterpieces by these young geniuses.”
Ganz played his 8th recital in his “Extreme Chopin” quest at the Strathmore Music Center on February 10 of this year. He is now entering the second half of his multi-year journey through the complete works of Chopin, a project he has undertaken in partnership with the National Philharmonic. He began the quest, which the pianist calls a “dream come true,” at Strathmore in January of 2011 in a sold out recital that launched the ambitious endeavor to perform the composer’s approximately 250 works. After the inaugural recital, The Washington Post wrote: “Brian Ganz was masterly in his first installment of the complete works [of Chopin].” Beverly Babcock, one of the Washington, D. C. area’s leading accompanists, is the college’s Accompanist-in-Residence and a member of the piano faculty.