Burlington

Launch Concert: 5/6/22 in UVM’s Recital Hall

A warm audience of 70 was present to see the project off. The first concert in this ~~251~~ 252-concert series featured a number of firsts: Beethoven’s first sonata, Bach’s first published keyboard suite, and Scarlatti’s first and also 251st keyboard sonatas, plus various ragtime and stride pieces.

My self-assessment of the performance is in this blog post.

Images and video follow—as well as the first installment of the about the piano feature. Every piano has a story, and for each venue, I will tell some of it here.

(click images to embiggen)

Bert Crosby set up the lighting to cast UVM’s Recital Hall organ in full green-and-gold splendor

A brief selection from the second half featuring the evening’s birthday boys, Tchaikovsky and Brahms

Post-concert, I address a coterie of young fans, who collectively brought the audience average age from over 60 down to the mid-40s

Reception goodies featuring Vermonty cookies! (on left), courtesy of Annelies McVoy

...about the piano

Steinway concert Model D piano with signatures

The UVM Recital Hall’s 9-foot Steinway concert Model D was given in honor, and at the instigation, of outgoing UVM President Edwin Colodny in 2003. It was selected from the Steinway factory in New York by my UVM colleagues Paul Orgel and Sylvia Parker a few years before I arrived at UVM. There’s a nice story about it here, written on the occasion of the piano’s 10th anniversary gala concert in 2013.

Pianists who play the UVM Recital Hall traditionally sign the frame. This snapshot highlights the signature of William Bolcom, composer of the Graceful Ghost Rag, which I played on this inaugural Play Every Town concert. (I was unable to locate signatures of other composers on the program such as Bach, Beethoven, or Scarlatti.)

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