Franz Schubert: Moments Musicaux
Scott Wheeler: Flow Chart
Bleecker Study (World Premiere)
Martin Boykan: Usurpations
Ives: Four Transciptions from Emerson
Study No. 23
March: Hail the Conquering Hero
Donald Berman has for years enjoyed combining standard repertoire with new music on concert programs, as a way of setting up a conversation which illuminates each work in a new way. On August 1st he will link Schubert with American music of three different eras - early and late 20th century, and 21st century. Usurpations by Martin Boykan appears on Mr. Berman's upcoming Bridge recording. Scott Wheeler's Flow Chart was written for and premiered by Mr. Berman in 1993, and his Bleecker Study (2012) receives its world premiere at Bargemusic. Each of the works by Ives is taken from a different volume of The Complete Short Works for Piano by Charles Ives, the critical edition of which has been overseen by Mr. Berman and will be published by three separate publishers in 2014 and 2015:
Miscellaneous Short Works - G. Schirmer/AMP
Studies - Theodore Presser
Marches - peermusic
And in a nod to one of his earliest career milestones as prizewinner at the 1991 International Schubert Competition, Mr. Berman starts his recital with Schubert's Moments Musicaux.
The Bridge recording, now in final post-production, shines a light on Martin Boykan, whose music Mr. Berman has long championed. "Marty's music is extremely gratifying - once it is learned! In the process of learning, his music becomes deeper and more ingrained, until I yearn to portray its intimate expressivity in performance. It is deeply personal and lives in my head for a long time afterward."
Donald Berman is a pianist of rare gifts - a musician with dazzling chops whose every expressive gesture is supported by the kind of profound stylistic authority which can only come from years of scholarly research and analysis. Starting with his years as the great John Kirkpatrick's last pupil, Mr.Berman's passions as a player have inspired his passions as a scholar, and vice versa. On the strength of the chance discovery of hundreds of forgotten musical manuscripts while snooping through a filing cabinet at the American Academy in Rome, Mr. Berman spent ten years curating an immense project which ultimately resulted in a highly praised series of four concerts of unknown and under-appreciated American music at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and a subsequent 4-CD set, Americans in Rome (Bridge 9271). He has been a Fellow at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, guest lecturer on minimalism at Northeastern University, Director of New England Conservatory's Summer Piano Institute, Advisor to the Boston Jewish Music Festival, General Editor of The Complete Short Works for Piano of Charles Ives, and Vice-president, Treasurer, Chair of Subventions, and Co-Chair of the Editorial Committee of the Charles Ives Society. All while pursuing an active performing career.
Performance highlights in recent years have focused primarily on solo and chamber music repertoire, combining familiar works by such composers as Scarlatti, Fauré, Chopin, Copland, Bloch, Schubert, Poulenc and Schoenberg with premieres and seldom performed works by Stucky, Wyner, Chang, Theofanidis, Saariaho, McDonald, Boulez, Cage, Schoenfield, Harbison, Zare, Lieberson, Lerdahl and many others. Mr. Berman's recordings can be found on Naxos, ARSIS Audio, Bridge, New World, CRI, Koch, Centaur, Newport Classics, Accurate and Capstone Records.
Donald Berman teaches at Tufts University and lives in Cambridge, MA with his wife and two children.
For more information about Donald Berman, call 831-620-1332 and visit
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