Saturday, Jan 26, 2019
2:15 pm - 5:00 pmPhoenix Auditorium
Canadian pianist Roger Admiral regularly performs solo and chamber repertoire from all major stylistic periods, and is particularly renown as a fearless champion of 20thcentury and contemporary repertoires. Combining formidable technical ability with calm, gritty tenacity, Roger offers audiences rare opportunities to experience meticulously prepared works of today and recent times. Roger has commissioned, premiered and recorded numerous works by Canadian composers, and performs regularly with the Aventa Ensemble (Victoria), and UltraViolet (New Music Edmonton). He resides in Camrose, Alberta, and teaches piano and chamber music at the University of Alberta.
On January 26th’s concert, Roger will present a program of visionary works for solo piano from both the early 20thand early 21stcenturies. The first half features Maurice Ravel’s famously virtuosic Gaspard de la nuit, as well as Claude Debussy’s well-known Clair de lune, Passepiedand La Cathédrale engloutie, Béla Bartók’s Barcarolla, and three movements from Arnold Shoenberg’s expressive Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, Op.19(Six Little Piano Pieces).
Canadian composer Howard Bashaw recently retired from the Department of Music at the University of Alberta and now resides on Gabriola Island. He has been collaborating with Roger on new music projects for 25 years – with one of the largest being 15 for Piano (2012); Roger is 1 of 5 pianists who co-commissioned the work through the Canada Council for the Arts. Presented as the second half of the program, 15 for Piano unfolds in an overarching, ebb-and-flow narrative of dramatic and stylistic contrasts that include: rapid Baroque-like textures, calm impressionistic visions, inspirations from ancient mythology, and strategic patterns and processes that revolve and evolve within geometric-like designs.
A pre-concert introduction will be given by Roger Admiral and Howard Bashaw. Hear about Impressionism, Expressionism, Atonality, poetry and mythology. In addition, a range of modern compositional techniques used in 15 for Piano will be described and demonstrated.