Audience
St. Mary's College of MD Musician-in-Residence Brian Ganz will continue his popular "PianoTalk" series at the new Performing Arts Center on the college campus. On Thursday, March 9 at 11:15 a.m. he will perform and discuss three of Fryderyk Chopin's most beguiling mazurkas. The PianoTalk, entitled "Chopin Mazurkas: The Sound of Mystery" will take place in the Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center, and is free and open to the public. For more information call (240) 895-4498.
"Chopin's mazurkas are my absolute favorite of his genres," pianist Ganz said recently. "I often say that they are his creative laboratory, in which he conducts more experiments than he does in any other genre. We'll look at some of those experiments in this PianoTalk," he continued. "But we'll also explore Chopin's uncanny ability to create an atmosphere of mystery and even strangeness in these gemlike works. When Chopin mixes strangeness with mystery, he gets something not just beautiful, but hauntingly beautiful. That's what I love most about these pieces."
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 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.”