Pianist Andreas Ioannides, artistic director of ChamberFest Brown County, will perform in concert March 30 at at Helen Haddad Hall in Columbus.
Pianist Andreas Ioannides will perform Franz Liszt’s 12 Transcendental Studies in a free concert at 4 p.m. March 30 at Helen Haddad Hall, 315 Franklin St. in downtown Columbus.
But a suggested donation of $20 will go toward Chamberfest Brown County Aug. 18 to 24. This annual week-long feast of chamber music in nearby Nashville brings to local audiences some of the top performers in the world of chamber music.
Ioannides is professor of piano and chamber music at Technological University Dublin Conservatoire and artistic director of ChamberFest Brown County. Ioannides has performed across Europe, Asia, North and South America, and locally at ChamberFest Brown County.
Late renowned pianist Menahem Pressler of the prestigious Indiana University Jacobs School of Music said of Ioannides, “Throughout his musical path Andreas has maintained the highest artistic standards. He is an outstanding pianist.”
On the program are studies, or etudes, that Franz Liszt (1811-1886) began writing at age 15.
He revised them over some years, changing them from straightforward technical studies to pieces that push performers to the limits of their skill. Musicians have observed that there’s not a second to sit back and relax.
Technical challenges like arpeggios — elements that are hard to play fast because a performer’s thumb and third finger have to cross so far. There are rapid scales and intricate passages.
Listeners will hear a complex mixture of structures: sonata, variations, and transformed themes. But along with the technical challenge is “music of deep emotion,” according to organizers.
Audience members can expect to journey through a landscape of changing moods and expressions. Liszt and these pieces inspired composers who came after them.
