Pianist/harpsichordist Genevieve Feiwen Lee
Pianist/harpsichordist Genevieve Feiwen Lee will present a recital on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 8 p.m., in Pomona College’s Bridges Hall of Music. The concert is free and open to the public.
Lee’s recital comprises a delightful blend of old and new compositions, interweaving a piece for harpsichord written by J.S. Bach, with two world premiere works, one by Pomona College’s own emeritus faculty member Karl Kohn.
From her first performance as a soloist with an orchestra at the age of 12, Lee has traveled the world giving solo recitals, making chamber music and premiering new music. In addition to chairing the Music Department at Pomona College, she has performed with the Los Angeles new music group XTET; is a founding member of the Mojave Trio, which regularly performs on “Sundays Live,” a radio broadcast from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, along with many other performances; and has two CDs on Albany Records, “Elements” and “An American Collage.”
The program includes Bach’s harpsichord Toccata BWV 916 in G Major, written in the early 1700s. Moving along the timeline and from the harpsichord to the piano, Lee performs Rachmaninoff’s 3 Preludes, with “rich and creamy” parts calling “for a kind of athletic pianism” according to Lee.
Moving forward nearly 100 years, is a 1991 arrangement by Jed Distler of an impromptu duet that was often performed by American composers/performers Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn entitled “Tonk.” Joining Lee in this duet is Lois Svard— live from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania via live audio/video stream to Bridges Hall of Music—a first for the Music Department.
Lee will perform the world premiere of “ONE,” by Kurt Rohde, which was composed for her, and is based upon 13 reflections on poems of Jakob Stein written from 2008-2009. “ONE” as 16-minute piece for piano, during which the pianist has speaking parts and where both the pianist and piano are lightly amplified, and assorted ‘found object’ percussion instruments are used in addition to the traditional use of the keyboard.
The second, “Nine Vignettes” are “brief, evocative, and episodic,” according to Kohn, and “makes allusions, direct or oblique, to characteristics of past styles and their elements of harmony, melody, rhythm, and texture.”
The recital will be held in Bridges Hall of Music (150 E. Fourth St., Claremont). For more information, call: (909)-607-2671, e-mail: concerts@pomona.edu [1], or visit: www.music.pomona.edu [2].
This performance is sponsored by the Pomona College Department of Music.