March 28, 2024
Annapolis, US 49 F

Pianist Brian Ganz & Poet Laureate Michael Glaser to present concert

Ganz with mike lowOn Friday, June 27 at 8 pm pianist Brian Ganz and former Maryland Poet Laureate Michael S. Glaser will perform “An Evening with the Muse: Poetry and Music with Michael S. Glaser and Brian Ganz”. “The evening will be a deep and joyful one for all lovers of poetry and music,” said Ganz. In an interweaving of poetry and music, Glaser will read from his own work and other poets including William Stafford, Naomi Shihab Nye and Lucille Clifton to explore how the music of language invites us to open ourselves to what is sacred in our lives. Ganz will play short works of Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Debussy and others in works that capture the poetry of sound. The evening is designed to present a shared celebration of the sacred and extraordinary within the ordinary. The concert will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis (UUCA), 333 Dubois Road. Tickets are $15 at the door. For more information visit www.uuannapolis.org or call 410-266-8044.

This program is part of the “Brian Ganz and Friends” concert series offered monthly to benefit the UUCA church’s work.  Ganz and Glaser have been friends for almost 30 years. “There is a kind of alchemy that takes words and transforms them into the music of poetry, and there is alchemy in taking mere sounds and transforming them into the poetry of music.  These two “alchemies” work absolute magic together!  Especially among friends,” Ganz concluded.

Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation.  He has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (of Russia), the Baltimore and the National Symphonies, the City of London Sinfonia, and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. He has performed in many of the world’s major concert halls and has played under the baton of such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, Jerzy Semkow and Yoel Levi.  A critic for La Libre Belgique wrote of Ganz’s work: “We don’t have the words to speak of this fabulous musician who lives music with a generous     urgency and brings his public into a state of intense joy.”

Ganz began his “Extreme Chopin” quest to perform all of Frédéric Chopin’s works three years ago. His sold out recital at the Music Center at Strathmore launched Ganz’s ambitious endeavor to perform the approximately 250 works of Chopin over the next decade.  The next concerts in the series will take place at Strathmore on February 7 and 8, 2015.

michael GlaserGlaser is a Professor Emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004-2009.  The recipient of the Homer Dodge Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Columbia Merit Award for service        to poetry, he served as a Maryland State Arts Council poet-in-the-schools for over 25 years and is widely sought as a speaker and workshop leader.  He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Maryland Humanities Council.  Glaser has edited three anthologies and published over 500 individual poems as well as eight collections of his poetry.  Most recently he co-edited The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA, 2012)

This program is the fourth in a year-long ticketed concert series offered monthly on the 4th Fridays at 8PM at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis (UUCA). A five concert series ticket can be obtained at the door for $60. The July 25 concert will feature chamber music for piano and strings by Tchaikovsky and Schumann with Brian Ganz and colleagues from the International Music Institute and Festival. See uuannapolis.org  for future programming.

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