Join us Thursday, October 27 at 5:55 PM at the Castle for Eric Nathan & Qing Jiang Concert and Brigitta Varadi Open Studio
Eric Nathan’s Concert Between
Between was commissioned as a short companion piece to Claude Debussy’s Études. Each of Debussy’s études focuses on a different technical challenge that a pianist strives to master in their study of the instrument. Nathan says: “In my piece, I focus on the challenge of playing “inside the piano,” a practice that has become common in the hundred years since the publication of Debussy’s work.I conceived of my piece as a dialogue between contrasting sounds and ways of engaging with the instrument: between the piano’s tempered tuning and its natural overtone harmonics, and between playing on the piano’s keys and upon its strings and structural beams. The piece follows the form of a lyrical chorale that crisscrosses and leaps across the piano’s range. It’s the pianist’s task to always sing the lyrical line amidst the technical challenges posed—finding meaning in what lies in between.”
Qing Jiang, pianist
Praised by the New York Times as a “fiery musician” whose playing is “vigorous and passionate,” Qing Jiang has emerged as a versatile musician equally known as a performer, teacher, and contemporary music advocate. She has given concerts in Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Jordan Hall, Snape Maltings Hall in the United Kingdom, and Shenzhen Poly Theater in China, and she was a soloist with the Britten-Pears Orchestra under legendary conductor and composer Oliver Knussen. She is a faculty artist member at the Kneisel Hall Festival and Associate Professor at Bucknell University.
Brigitta Varadi’s Open Studio WE ARE NOT MEANT TO BE SEEN, Angela
This Project examines the breuccio, which is a small piece of red satin fabric sewn together to hold coarse rock salt. Breucci were shared between women in their families, made to protect them from bad luck. WE ARE NOT MEANT TO BE SEEN, Angela came out of a desire to give new meaning to symbolic objects that belong to the past. The rediscovery of pieces of our traditional cultural past, like the breuccio, allows us to know and, at the same time, go beyond, our cultural values. Breucci allow us, as women, to reflect on our invisibility, and thus to overcome it through an understanding of our own interiority, agency, and worth.
“From this little piece of cloth, reflections and conversations have come forth: as a young woman born and raised in a traditional farming family from a small town in central Italy, talking about the breuccio has been a way to understand my own past, and thus to step beyond it. Breucci allow us, as women, to reflect on our invisibility, and thus to overcome it through an understanding of our own interiority, agency, and worth.” Angela
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Gates open at 5:55 PM
Nathan & Jiang concert at 6:00 PM
Varadi Open Studio in the Gallery at 6:30 PM
Please RSVP here.
Refreshments will be served in the Secret Garden after the Concert.