Pianofest 2021 Winter Newsletter: Season Still in Planning Stages Due to Pandemic
Further Updates in February
Dear Pianofest Family,
The health and safety of the Pianofest Family — students, staff, teachers, trustees, community partners, and the members of our audience — is our highest priority. COVID-19 is impacting all of us in unprecedented ways, and we share a deep concern for the individuals and communities grappling with its effects. Given this rapidly changing environment, we decided to cancel our 2020 summer season. This was a heart-breaking but necessary decision. Nevertheless, we were confident it was the right thing to do for the general good.
We look forward to circumstances improving in the future and will keep everyone up to date as we make plans for our 2021 summer season. We are still in the planning stages of next summer's festival. Further news will be posted on this website on February 20, 2021.
Wishing you all, and all the world, perseverance and most of all, good health.
Sincerely,
Paul Schenly, Director
The Board of Pianofest in the Hamptons
Michelle Cann Named Inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music
PHILADELPHIA—November 17, 2020—The Curtis Institute of Music announces that Michelle Cann will join its faculty as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies, effective immediately. Ms. Cann, a 2013 graduate of the institution, will hold a new named chair created in honor of pianist Eleanor Sokoloff, who passed away in July 2020 after serving on Curtis’s faculty for 84 years.
Lauded as “a compelling, sparkling virtuoso” (Boston Music Intelligencer), Ms. Cann is in-demand as a soloist, recitalist, and music educator. She enjoys a long relationship with Curtis, first as a student and Community Artist fellow, and most recently as a collaborative staff pianist.
“Curtis has been my second home since I enrolled in 2010,” says Ms. Cann, who holds an Artist’s Diploma from the school. “A decade later I am honored to continue my connection to this great institution as a member of the piano faculty. I have learned a lot throughout my life about the importance of mentorship and the value of being a musician citizen with meaningful relationships to our communities. I am excited to mentor the students who I work with, inspiring them to shape careers for themselves that will encompass all they have to offer as musicians while connecting with audiences in an impactful way.”
Ms. Cann, who is based in Philadelphia, will work with Curtis students in individual lessons as well as chamber coachings, utilizing remote instruction while the school operates online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She will be among a renowned roster of performers, pedagogues, and artist-citizens teaching at Curtis, including Robert McDonald, with whom Ms. Cann previously studied.
Michelle first attended Pianofest as a teenager in 2006. She has attended Pianofest ever since, as a student, then as House Manager, and now as Artist in Residence. I think I can speak for all her Pianofest friends in offering Michelle Cann our best wishes and blessings for success in her new endeavor!
Awadagin Pratt and Cincinnati Orchestra in Mozart piano concerto #12
Louis Langrée, Music Director, welcomed world-renowned pianist, Cincinnati’s own Awadagin Pratt, for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12.
Soyeon Lee and Ran Dank perform for the Library of Congress
Relive a treasured 19th-century concert experience when this award-winning duo, Ran Dank and Soyeon Lee performs Liszt’s storied transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, op. 125 for two pianos. About the Liszt transcriptions, musicologist Donald Tovey declared “they prove conclusively that Liszt was by far the most wonderful interpreter of orchestral scores on the pianoforte the world is ever likely to see.” Come witness the birth of Liszt’s novel pianistic effects in a series covering all the Beethoven symphonies in these rarely performed transcriptions
LISZT
Les Préludes (version for 2 pianos), S.637
BEETHOVEN/LISZT
Symphony no. 9 in D minor, op. 125