Audience
Tuesday, April 23 will be a rich and eventful day at St. Mary's College of MD for lovers of the piano in collaborative performance. A free concert begins at 11:10 a.m., Musician-in-Residence Brian Ganz will be joined by colleague Robert Hayes, staff accompanist at the college. Mr. Hayes will play the solo part of a work for piano and orchestra by English composer Gerald Finzi. The work, a single movement originally intended to serve as the slow movement for a planned piano concerto, is entitled Eclogue. Mr. Ganz will play the piano reduction of the orchestral part. Then the two will switch roles in a performance of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy Op. 80 for piano, orchestra and chorus. Mr. Hayes will play the piano reduction of both the orchestra and the chorus. Then, later that afternoon at 3pm, students of Ganz and eminent violinist and member of the music faculty José Miguel Cueto will present a concert of chamber music in which the two faculty members will join their students on stage. The concert will include other talented students at the college as well. Both concerts will take place in the Recital Hall of the new Performing Arts Center and are free and open to the public. For more information, call (240) 895-4498 or email musicdepartment@smcm.edu.
"Gerald Finzi has long been one of my favorite English composers, and his music deserves to be much better known than it is," pianist Ganz said recently. "Robert Hayes is a wonderful pianist and he plays this piece with such love and insight. Kudos to him for bringing this repertoire to light! Our Tuesday performance will be a preview of Robert's upcoming appearance with the college orchestra on Friday April 26 at 7pm. Then we'll play a preview of the great Beethoven Choral Fantasy, which will be a centerpiece of our beloved colleague Larry Vote's farewell concert on April 27 at the college. In that performance we'll hear the orchestra and the chorus, so both of these previews will be a great opportunity to get to know the pieces better in advance of their respective performances with orchestra. We'll discuss both works on Tuesday, with demonstrations at the two pianos before we perform them. Music lovers might then want to catch a light lunch at Brew'd Awakening a few steps away from the Performing Arts Center, because at 3pm several of our talented students will join my colleague, the wonderful violinist José Cueto and myself in a 'round robin' performance of Beethoven's Spring Sonata for Violin and Piano. There will be more chamber music as well, with works for piano four hands, piano and trumpet and a magnificent movement from a Schubert trio for piano, violin and cello. It will be a veritable feast for the ears! Students participating in this concert will be Pierre Petitjean, Jane Liang, Joanna Cleaver, Sentiah Cole, Jordan Golden and Austin Olewnik."
Recognized for the beauty of his tone, José Miguel Cueto performs worldwide as chamber musician and guest soloist with orchestras. His recordings with orchestra include Gladness of Heart, performing the Menotti Violin Concerto with Concert Artists of Baltimore conducted by Edward Polochick (Sonora Label) and Two Italian Violin concerti-featuring violin concertos by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Ottorino Respighi, with Vladimir Lande conducting the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra of Russia (Marquis label). A featured guest artist in major music festivals in North America, Puerto Rico, France and Italy, he has toured in Hungary, Slovakia, China, the Czech Republic, Italy and Russia. Mr. Cueto is Concert Master of the Maryland Lyric Opera Orchestra and the Chesapeake Festival Orchestra. He served as Concert Artists of Baltimore orchestra’s concertmaster from the beginning of its creation until the recent demise of the organization in 2019. José Cueto holds degrees from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and BM and MM in violin performance from the Peabody Conservatory at the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Cueto is on the violin faculty at the Catholic University of America and at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where he has also served as Artist in Residence and Chair of Strings. He has taught for the Road’s Scholar program at Johns Hopkins University Peabody Institute. He serves on the Advisory Committee of the Center for Latin American Studies at CUA.
Robert Hayes came from a musical family and started playing piano at the young age of four. He began formal lessons at five with Shirley Denmark (who had taught his mother and aunts) and made his recital debut at six. He continued his musical development by participating in middle school band and singing in church choir, but his main instrument remained the piano. After high school, his life took a detour when he joined the Air Force, remaining there for about six years but never entirely giving up his musical passion. After his term of service ended, he enrolled at St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM), initially as a Computer Science major, but switched to Music in Spring 2015. He resumed piano lessons, this time with Eliza Garth. Although slow-going at first, he was able to distinguish himself in the SMCM Music Department through his solo piano performances, accompanying, and singing in both Chamber Singers and PING. He has also performed at the Alba Music Festival in Italy and River Concert Series in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Currently, he is the chapel pianist and choir accompanist at Trinity Episcopal Church. He is also a staff accompanist and the Operations Coordinator to the Performing Arts Department (Music) at SMCM.
Brian 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.”
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