Concert #2 - Saturday, October 18, 2008, 8:00 pm
Lucas Theatre, Savannah, Georgia

The Savannah Concert Association presents

Marina Lomazov, pianist
Joseph Rackers, pianist

The Lomazov/Rackers piano duo came to attention in 2005 as the Second Prize Winners of the Sixth Biennial Ellis Duo Piano Competition, the only national competition for piano duo in the United States. Since that time, they have performed as recitalists and in concert with orchestras throughout the United States and Europe, including performances on the "Summer Evenings in Kiev" concert series (Ukraine), Varna International Masterclasses in Piano (Bulgaria) and Moulin d’ Ande Arts Festival (France), in addition to appearances in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Oregon and South Carolina.

As advocates for Twentieth and Twenty-First Century music, the Lomazov/Rackers duo has given more than twenty performances of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring across the United States since 2006. After one performance, a critic wrote that the duo "...really lit up the audience... demonstrated that nearly 100 years after it was written, this modernist touchstone can still sound modern." (Dan Cook, Columbia Free Times). In 2005, the duo gave the South Carolina premiere of Halleluiah Junction by John Adams, and in 2008, they gave the World Premiere of Ad Lucem (Toward the Light) by composer John Fitz Rogers. Their performances have been described as "splendid" (Rochester, NY, WXXI radio), and a review of a recent performance of the Poulenc Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra said simply, "The soloists? Amazing." (The State, SC).

Recent and upcoming engagements include performances with the Chernigov Symphony Orchestra (Ukraine), Lucas Theatre in Savannah, Georgia, performances and masterclasses at Arizona State University, the Music at Penn Alps Concert Series in Maryland, the Augusta Symphony Orchestra Columbia County Concert Series in Georgia, the Central Oregon Symphony Concert Series, and performances as soloists with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra.

As a solo pianist, Marina Lomazov has performed throughout the United States as well as Europe, South America and the Far East. She has won prizes in the Bachauer, Cleveland, Hilton Head, Kapell and National Federation solo piano competitions and was the first pianist to be awarded the Artist Diploma at the Eastman School of Music in nearly two decades. She is the founder and director of the Southeastern Piano Festival, a nationally recognized event for young pianists.

Joseph Rackers has performed throughout the United States, Canada, China and Europe at important venues including the Shanghai and Sichuan Conservatories of Music (China), Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival (Germany), Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Yantai International Music Festival (China) and in twenty states in the U.S. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Performer’s Certificate and Excellence in Teaching Prize from the Eastman School of Music.

Ms. Lomazov and Mr. Rackers each hold the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Piano Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, and each currently serves on the piano faculty at the University of South Carolina School of Music.

PROGRAM

Fantasia for one piano four hands in F minor, D. 940
    Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)

Piano Sonata for four hands in C Major, K. 521
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)

— INTERMISSION —

The Rite of Spring
    Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)

Part I: The Adoration of the Earth
    Introduction
    Dances of the Young Girls
    Mock Abduction
    Spring Round Dance
    Games of the Rival Tribes
    Procession of the Wise Elder
    Adoration of the Earth (The Wise Elder)
    Dance of the Earth

Part II: The Sacrifice
    Introduction
    Mystical Circles of the Young Girls
    Glorification of the Chosen Victim
    Summoning of the Ancients
    Ritual of the Ancients
    Sacrificial Dance (The Chosen Victim)

PROGRAM NOTES

Fantasia for one piano four hands in F minor, D. 940
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
The fantasia was composed in the last year of Schubert's short, sad life. Even as his health was deteriorating, he was capable of producing this sublime work. Completed in April of 1828, it was first performed by the composer and pianist Franz Paul Lachner on May 9 in the apartment of their mutual friend, Eduard von Bauernfeld, who noted in his diary that the work was "wonderful". However, with typical Schubertian bad luck, the event was overshadowed in his mind by the group's attendance earlier in the day at a violin recital by the violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini, where the ever-generous Schubert paid for all three tickets. This is the only composition that Schubert dedicated to the young countess Caroline Esterhazy, although tradition has it that he once declared to her that such dedications were unnecessary, since all his work was dedicated to her. So far as is known, there were no public performances prior to the composer’s death in November at age 31. The score was published by Breitkopf in March of the following year.

Piano Sonata for four hands in C Major, K. 521
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
The four-hand piano sonata, K. 521, was composed in May 1787, in the midst of an incredibly prolific period, even by Mozart's exalted standards. He was living in Vienna and was primarily preoccupied with the composition of Don Giovanni. He did allow himself time for a weekly gathering for "discussions, games and music-making" at the home of Nikolaus von Jacquin, a famous botanist, whose son Gottfried was a close friend. Gottfried's sister Franzisca was a singer and also a pupil of the composer. On the day he finished the work, he wrote to Gottfried, "Please be so good as to give the sonata to your sister with my compliments and tell her to
tackle it at once, for it is rather difficult." He later dedicated the work to two sisters, Nanette and Babette Natorp, one of whom was to become Gottfried's sister-in-law. The work is in the conventional three-movement form of allegro, andante and allegretto. The great Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein was to declare that the "chivalrous amiability" of the opening and closing movements foreshadowed the compositional style of Carl Maria von Weber.

The Rite of Spring
Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)
No composition exerted a greater influence on the music of the twentieth century than The Rite of Spring. The first public performance of the work in Paris in 1913 provoked one of the most famous riots in the history of music. As the din rose from the audience, the impresario Serge Diaghilev, for whose dance troupe the work had been composed, frantically began switching the house lights on and off in the hope of quieting the hall.

Stravinsky himself left in a fury during the performance, slamming the door behind him as he exited. Repeated hearings, which were obviously not available to that first audience, reveal a work that is not only important but also supremely great. Stravinsky wrote that the idea for The Rite of Spring came to him in 1910 as he was composing The Firebird. He dreamed of a scene of pagan ritual in which a sacrificial virgin dances herself to death. The thematic ideas came to him in the summer of 1911 and he pushed himself to have the work ready for performance by 1912, but the questionable health of the dancer Nijinsky forced the delay of the first performance until the following year. In its use of melody, harmony and rhythm, the work is revolutionary in every respect. The arrangement that we will hear this evening was made by the composer himself.

Tickets $35, $25, $12.50
Visit SCAD Box Office
www.scadboxoffice.com
216 E. Broughton Street, Savannah, or call
(912) 525-5050. Visa and Mastercard accepted.

Music teachers and students may order special tickets @$2 by emailing name & address to dianelboyd@comcast.net

For a free brochure of the 2008-2009 season, email name & address to eoliver524@comcast.net

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