British pianist Paul Lewis will treat audiences to an evening of Schubert’s piano works at the Mahaney Center for the Arts Concert Hall on Friday, October 14, 2011 at 8:00 P.M. Lewis is internationally recognized as one of the leading pianists of his generation, and has become an audience favorite on the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series.
This concert is the third in a series of five concerts in Lewis’s worldwide Schubert project. In 2011, he began this two year cycle, performing all of Schubert’s mature piano works from the Wandererfantasie onwards. The series will be presented in Middlebury, London, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Melbourne, Rotterdam, Bologna, Florence, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, and at other venues worldwide. For the October 14 concert at Middlebury, he will perform the Wandererfantasie, as well as the Four Impromptus and Moments Musicaux. The next installment in the series will take place in Middlebury on May 4, 2012.Lewis has already garnered significant critical acclaim for Schubert performances. The Chicago Tribune noted, “Lewis’ deep insights into the emotional complications of this music were matched by his firm grasp of classical structure and the ways in which Schubert’s lyrical gift illuminates that structure. This was Schubert playing of a very high order.”
Between 2005 and 2007, Lewis performed the complete Beethoven Sonatas at venues throughout Europe and North America to great critical acclaim, and his recordings of the cycle for Harmonia Mundi have received unanimous praise throughout the world. His complete set of the Beethoven Piano Concertos with Jiri Belohlavek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra was chosen as Recording of the Month in both Gramophone and Classic FM Magazine in autumn 2010. He has recently completed recordings of the three Schubert song cycles with tenor Mark Padmore. Many of his most recent recordings will be for sale at the concert venue.
In summer 2010, Lewis became the first pianist in the history of the BBC Proms to play all five Beethoven Piano Concertos in a single Proms season. The complete cycle was broadcast on BBC television. He is also a regular guest at many other prestigious venues and festivals including the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Roque d’Antheron Piano Festival, the Klavier Festival Ruhr, and London’s Wigmore Hall where he has appeared on more than forty occasions.
Lewis studied with Ryszard Bakst at Chethams School of Music and Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel. Along with his wife, the Norwegian cellist Bjørg Lewis, he is artistic director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire, UK.
Tickets are $20, for faculty and Staff and $6 for Middlebury College students. For tickets or information, go/boxoffice or x-6433.