Composers in Play VI: Portrait of a Canadian Minimalist
$30 ($25 senior/arts professional; students free)
- Sarah Cahill, piano
- Adrienne Kim, piano
- Adam Sherkin, piano
Adam Sherkin — Daycurrents, Op. 14
Ann Southam — Pond Life ("Fiddle Creek," "Pond Life III," "Fidget Creek," & "Pond Life IV")
Adam Sherkin — This Constant Song (Homage to Ann Southam) (2023; NYC premiere)
Franz Schubert — Gretchen am Spinnrade ("Gretchen at the spinning wheel"), D. 118 (arr. Franz Liszt)
Ann Southam — Remembering Schubert
Adam Sherkin — German Promises, Op. 17 (Nos. 3 & 4: "Fluency" & "Heyday")
Ann Southam — Glass Houses No. 5
Ann Southam — Glass Houses No. 7
Ann Southam — Rivers
Ann Southam — Rivers VII (Set 2)
Ann Southam — Rivers I (Set 1)
Ann Southam — Commotion Creek
On Saturday, December 9th, 2023 in New York, three singular pianists join forces to celebrate the work of Canadian composer, Ann Southam.
An unlikely champion of minimalist aesthetics, Southam worked tirelessly throughout her career, experimenting with style and structure, always staying true to her own voice and musicality. Later in life, as she embraced minimalism - particularly at the keyboard - she navigated her own brand of lyricism, intimacy and efficiency of line not only as feminist, but as an individual artist born of unquestionably North American sensibilities. She advocated for women in the arts and cultivated her own – very unique – career, all the while cohabitating a compositional world heavily dominated by men. CBC Producer Eitan Cornfield once said: “Ann Southam blasts the stereotype of the Canadian composer. She is proudly, politically female, in a stuffy male universe.”
In 2023, now thirteen years after her death, she is revered more than ever. This presentation on December 9th celebrates the major piano cycles Southam wrote over a late twenty-year span, forming her final creative period: "Glass Houses," "Rivers" and "Pond Life."
Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adrienne Kim and Adam Sherkin take up the challenge.
Reception with complimentary bar to follow.
About Piano Lunaire
The Piano Lunaire is a contemporary classical music organization based in New York and Toronto, pursuing the presentation of artistic excellence in the 21st Century. The company’s portfolio is three-fold: we produce monthly full moonperformances, house a record label, and collaborate with the musical community at large, in capacity of both fundraising and pedagogical platform.
https://pianolunaire.wordpress.com/About Sarah Cahill, piano
About Adrienne Kim, piano
Pianist ADRIENNE KIM has performed in New York's Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Bargemusic, Boston's Symphony Hall, Washington D.C.'s Phillips Gallery and Ravinia's Rising Stars series in Chicago. She has appeared as soloist with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing, the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and the Richmond Orchestra.
She is the pianist of the Alcott Trio and is a founding member of the New York Chamber Music Co-Op, a new creative performance collaborative based in New York City. Ms. Kim was a member of Chamber Music Society Two. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's two-year residency program for emerging young artists. She has performed with the New York Chamber Ensemble, Garden City Chamber Music Society, Lighthouse Chamber Players, Salt Bay Chamberfest, Carnegie Chamber Players, Bronx Arts Ensemble, the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, the Society for New Music, the Skaneateles Festival, Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival, and was the resident pianist of the Seal Bay Festival for American Chamber Music in Maine. With the West End Chamber Ensemble, she participated in the National Endowment for the Arts/Chamber Music America Rural Residency.
Ms. Kim's most recent album is solo and chamber music of the Finnish composer, Ilari Kaila, with the Aizuri Quartet and Isabel Lepanto Gleicher. She has recorded the solo and chamber works of Daniel S. Godfrey with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra on the Koch label, the violin and piano sonatas of Charles Ives with Lisa Tipton on Capstone Records, the sonatas of Niels Gade with violinist, Katie Wolfe, and sonatas by Spanish composers with violinist, Jorge Avila, both on the Centaur label. She and Ms. Tipton also presented the "Made in America" series at Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall for several years.
Ms. Kim is on the faculty of Mannes College, The New School, Prep Division and College Division, where she formerly served as Coordinator of the Piano Department in the Prep division and is currently Coordinator of Secondary Piano in the College division. She recently joined the faculty of Manhattan School of Music, Pre-College division. She is also a coach for the New York Youth Symphony's chamber music program. She was Affiliate Artist at Syracuse University and was on the Concert Artist Faculty at Kean University in New Jersey. She also served on the Executive Board of the Piano Teachers' Congress of New York City.
Ms. Kim recently launched the Wild Plums Recording Retreat and ScherziMusic Academy, an online site for workshops in piano and composition, with her husband, composer Nicolas Scherzinger. During the summers she is on the faculty of the Kinhaven Music School, Young Artists Session, in Vermont and the Summertrios festival in Bryn Mawr. Ms. Kim studied with Menahem Pressler at Indiana University where she earned her Bachelor's degree and earned her Master's degree from Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Leon Fleisher.