Concert Series I

September 2010

Friday, September 24, SOU Recital Hall, Ashland, 7:30 pm
Saturday, September 25, Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater, Medford, 7:30 pm
Sunday, September 26, GPHS Performing Arts Center,Grants Pass, 3 pm

Alexander Tutunov Alexander Tutunov, piano

Novák - In the Tatras
Gershwin - Piano Concerto
Alexander Tutunov, piano
Beethoven - Symphony No. 5

All are invited to a pre-concert talk one hour before each performance. Free.

 

Alexander Tutunov, piano

Alexander Tutunov is widely recognized as one of the most outstanding virtuosos of the former Soviet Union. First Prize winner of the Belarusian National Piano Competition and winner of the Russian National Piano Competition, Tutunov's playing was described by Soviet Culture, Moscow, as "exhilarating and inspired, and which demonstrated a unique talent".

Dr. Tutunov maintains a busy performing schedule in Europe, China, Mexico, and the United States as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and on radio and television. Dr. Tutunov is also in demand as an adjudicator for piano competitions.

Tutunov's recording of the Abeliovich Piano Concerto was featured as part of the Emmy award winning soundtrack for the History Channel documentary, Russia: Land of Tsars, and his CD of the Tchaikovsky Concert Fantasy with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra was produced in January 2008. Other recordings include: Concerto for Piano & Orchestra by Peter Sacco with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra (Albany Records) and the solo piano works of Lev Abeliovich Sonatas & Frescoes, Trio, Songs (Altarus Records). The CD America's Millennium Tribute to Adolphe Sax on the AUR label, which includes Tutunov's recording of "Transformations" by Todd Barton, received a Grammy nomination.

Tutunov graduated magna cum laude from the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory (studies with Anna Artobolevskaya and Lev Naumov) and University of North Texas (piano studies with Joseph Banowetz). Awarded his doctoral diploma with honors in concert performance from the Belarusian State Conservatory, Dr. Tutunov has taught at the Minsk College of Music, the University of North Texas, and Illinois Wesleyan University.

Alexander Tutunov now lives in Ashland, where he is Professor of Piano and Artist in Residence at Southern Oregon University. A successful piano pedagogue, he continues to prepare award-winning students. Dr. Tutunov is Artist in Residence at the University of Alaska Southeast, Artistic director of the SOU International Piano Institute, and was recently named Associate director of the Chinese-American International Piano Institute in Chengdu, China.

Alexander Tutunov's website

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Novák, In the Tatras

Much of the Slovakian countryside is mountainous, and the Tatras Mountains, which run along the northern border with Poland, are among the most rugged and dramatic. Summer and winter, their magnificent scenery makes them a popular vacation destination, and their history is rich with stories and myths. Novák was a contemporary Czech composer who wrote in late-Romantic style, very colorful and pictorial. In 1902 his tone poem, In the Tatras, established him firmly as one of Europe’s leading composers. He died in 1949.

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Gershwin, Concerto in F

George Gershwin wrote Concerto in F in 1925, at the height of the Jazz Age. He had won international stardom with his Broadway musicals and Rhapsody in Blue was a hit, but he suspected that classical musicians did not take him seriously. He set out to prove them wrong with the quintessentially American sound of this piano concerto. The first movement is a Charleston; the second is a bluesy impression of a steamy summer night in New York City; the third brings back the Charleston with what Gershwin called “an orgy of rhythms.”  

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Beethoven, Symphony No. 5

As in Gershwin’s Concerto, rhythm drives Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—innovative, powerful, reaching far into the future. The symphony begins with the four notes that people everywhere recognize instantly today: “Fate knocking at the door,” dot-dot-dot-dash, the dramatic V-for-Victory sound that inspired the entire free world during World War II. What follows is music of such high-voltage emotional intensity that it may well be the single best-known piece of classical music ever written. Beethoven conducted the premiere in 1808.

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Program notes by Nancy Golden