More Information About The Prokofiev Project: Pianistic Prokofiev

Website

http://livelyarts.stanford.edu/event.php?code=PINI

Description

Kumaran Arul, piano
George Barth, piano
Alexander Toradze, piano
Joseph Horowitz, host

This piano recital with commentary surveys the radical Prokofiev of 1914 (Sarcasms, performed by Arul), the patriotic wartime Prokofiev (the Seventh Sonata, performed by Toradze), and the Romantic Prokofiev (Cinderella, in a two-piano version performed by Arul and Barth). How does Prokofiev’s stylistic odyssey align with the Russian, European, and Soviet chapters of his tumultuous life and times?

Joseph Horowitz is one of today’s most prolific writers on musical topics. As an orchestral administrator and adviser, he has been a pioneering force in the development of thematic programming and new concert formats. Horowitz was a music critic for the New York Times from 1976 to 1980. His Conversations with Arrau (1982), published in six languages, won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. His Understanding Toscanini (1987) was named one of the most distinguished books of the year by the New York Book Critics Circle. His Wagner Nights (1994) received the Society for American Music’s Lowens Award, widely regarded as the highest honor for books about American music. He is the author of the articles on classical music for both The Oxford Encyclopedia of American History and The Encyclopedia of New York State. As a consultant for orchestras and arts presenters throughout the United States, he has curated more than three dozen thematic, interdisciplinary festivals.

Pianist Alexander Toradze is universally recognized as a masterful virtuoso in the grand Romantic tradition. His recording of the five Prokofiev concertos with Valery Gergiev is acclaimed by critics as definitive, and the third was singled out by International Piano Quarterly as “historically the best on record.” Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Toradze graduated from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. In 1983, he moved permanently to the United States and in 1991 was appointed as the Martin Endowed Professor of Piano at Indiana University, South Bend, where he has created a renowned teaching environment. Members of the multinational Toradze Piano Studio have developed into a worldwide touring ensemble that performs projects presenting the piano and chamber works of Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Dvorák, Scriabin, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Russia.

Program

Prokofiev: Sarcasms, op. 17 (1912–14)
performed by Kumaran Arul

Prokofiev: Cinderella, op. 45 (1940–44), as arranged for two pianos by Mikhail Pletnyev
performed by Kumaran Arul and George Barth

Intermission

Prokofiev: Visions fugitives, op. 17 (1915–17), excerpts
performed by Kumaran Arul

Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 7, op. 83 (1939–42)
performed by Alexander Toradze

About the Ticket Supplier: Stanford Lively Arts

Stanford Lively Arts curates experiences that engage artists' and audiences' imagination, creativity, and sense of adventure. Founded in 1969 at Stanford University, Lively Arts produces and presents music, theater, dance, spoken word, and multi-media events. Lively Arts places a special focus on innovation and risk-taking, and through commissions and premieres is an incubator and destination for new work. Stanford Lively Arts plays a leading and collaborative role in the university's thriving vision of a sustained culture of creativity--one in which the arts integrate with the academic disciplines, flourish as a vital part of campus and community life, and inspire new perspectives on our lives and culture.