Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: An Evening with Michael Stephen Brown

• Michael Stephen Brown, piano

Franz Joseph Haydn — Fantasia in C major, Hob. XVII:4 "Capriccio"
Claude Debussy — Hommage à Haydn
Maurice Ravel — Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn
Michael Stephen Brown — Etude-Fantasy on the name of Haydn
Maurice Ravel — Miroirs
Delphine von Schauroth — 6 Lieder ohne Worte ("6 Songs Without Words"), Op. 18 (selections)
Felix Mendelssohn — Fantasy in F-sharp minor, Op. 28 "Sonate écossaise" ("Scottish Sonata")
Michael Stephen Brown — Breakup Etude for Right Hand Alone
Felix Mendelssohn / Sergei Rachmaninoff — "I. Scherzo" from A Midsummer Night's Dream
Franz Liszt / Felix Mendelssohn — Concert Paraphrase on Mendelssohn's 'Sommernachtstraum,' S. 410 ("Wedding March" & "Dance of the Fairies")

The concert opens with Haydn's Fantasia in C major, followed by tributes to Haydn by Ravel, Debussy, and Brown himself. Ravel's masterwork, Miroirs is next; Brown's recording of the work spurred the BBC Music Magazine to ask, "How many pianists realise the luminosity and the quietest dynamics [of Ravel] as well as Brown?" Audiences will be introduced to pianist-composer Delphine Von Schauroth, who wrote Songs without Words for Mendelssohn, who once considered marrying her. Brown also offers his own Breakup Etude for Right Hand Alone, a work he wrote in the midst of a relationship ending during pandemic isolation. Two transcriptions from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream bring the program to a close.

About Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS)

http://www.chambermusicsociety.org/

About Michael Stephen Brown, piano

Praised for his "fearless performances," by The New York Times and "exceptionally beautiful" compositions by The Washington Post, pianist and composer Michael Stephen Brown is a frequent performer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center series. Mr. Brown, whose artistry is shaped by his creative voice as a pianist and composer, will be featured in the Society 2023-24 season with a solo recital at Alice Tully Hall. A native New Yorker, he lives there with his two 19th-century Steinway Ds, Octavia and Daria.

https://www.samnyc.us/artist.php?id=michaelstephenbrown&aview=dpk