Date: 1/15/08
Contact: Marc Lebovitz
Pianist and Associate Professor David Feurzeig has established a reputation for cooking up different ideas for his faculty recitals at Illinois State University, and his Tuesday, Jan. 22, recital at 7:30 p.m. in Kemp Recital Hall will both entertain and inform. Admission is free and open to the public.
“The idea behind the program,” Feurzeig said, “is that I find my attention wandering partway through an entire Baroque dance suite (or any other set of small, similar pieces in the same key) even though I’m a professional musician and major Bach fan. I wanted to program Bach’s great Partita no. 1, but without boring myself or the audience. Plus, magnificent as Bach is, the suites are just elevated dance music, and I wanted to bring that out.
“In the first half of the concert, I play the Bach Partita movements interwoven with four ‘ragtimey’ pieces, all in the Partita’s key of B-flat,” he said. “It’s amazing how ‘low-down’ ragtime holds its own, even against one of the all-time compositional geniuses. And to put Bach in this nightclub context, to take him off the musico-academic-religious pedestal we’ve built up and let him just dance—man, that was a working musician who could really swing!”
Feurzeig calls the recital “Two Double Suites” and it is part of the Charles W. Bolen Faculty Series, named for the dean emeritus of the College of Fine Arts. Feurzeig, who was the silver medalist of the 2001 Old-Time Piano Playing World Championship, will mix the music with amusing and informative explication and anecdotes.
The second half of the program uses the same interweaving idea, with Bartok’s Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm as the starting point.
“I alternate the six dances with unrelated but interesting pieces that complement them,” he said. “In between, I’ll discuss Bartok’s fascinating relationship to Balkan folk music and how it ultimately forced his flight from the Hungarian Nazi regime.”
The next scheduled School of Music faculty recital will feature pianist and first-year faculty member Tuyen Tonnu on Feb. 5 in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall.
