Ganz PianoTalk Concert Set Nov. 14
St. Mary’s College of Maryland musician-in-residence Brian Ganz will continue his popular free PianoTalk concert series at 11:20am Thursday, November 14, in the recital hall of the Dodge Performing Arts Center on the college campus.
Mr. Ganz will discuss and perform Fryderyk Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, the work Chopin considered his finest.
For more information, call 240-895-4498 or go here.
“I am so excited to resume my PianoTalk series with this masterpiece by my favorite composer,” pianist Ganz said. “Chopin rarely revealed his intimate feelings about his works. So it is extraordinary that we have the account of his friend, the great composer and critic Robert Schumann, in this case. Schumann stated that in a private conversation with Chopin, the composer said this ballade was his favorite of his own works. This was very meaningful to me, as the ballade is also my favorite. I often say it is the piece with which Chopin ‘wounded’ me, when I was a boy, with its extraordinary beauty. I asked myself then, ‘How can music be so beautiful that it hurts?’ Although I have spent my life exploring that question, it is a lovely wonder to me that I still cannot answer it definitively. Perhaps it is appropriate that some mystery always remains.”
Mr. Ganz has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the National 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 Mr. 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.”
