Donald Berman  by Philip D. Cooper

Essential American pianist, scholar and educator Donald Berman will cap the 2015- 2016 concert season with three entirely different concert programs in east coast appearances, along with the release on 27 May of Scott Wheeler: Portraits & Tributes, a new recording of the complete works for solo piano by Scott Wheeler, on Bridge Records [BRIDGE 9463].  As planning for each concert has finalized, four changes of note have been made to Mr. Berman's CD release party and performance at  National Sawdust on 15 June: the time has moved to 7pm ***(see below) ; the program has added ***new works  and a guest mezzo-soprano, Krista River  * **(see below) , and  ***tickets  have been set at $25 in advance / $30 at door .

First Mr. Berman returns to Bargemusic, where he played enthusiastically received recitals in both 2014 and 2015 ("adventurous and excellent pianist"; "perfect balance of fire and rhapsody"- New York Times), with an intriguing thematic program bringing together works of W.A. Mozart, Judith Weir, Peter Philips, Loren Rush and Charles Ives. The date is 8pm Friday, 27 May 2016 at Bargemusic: 1 Water Street / Brooklyn / 11201 / 718-624-4924 / Donald Berman @ Bargemusic. Tickets range from $15 to $35. 

The program: 

LOREN RUSH (b. 1935): Oh, Susanna (1972)
W. A. MOZART (1756-1791): Sonata in F Major K.332 (1783)
PETER PHILIPS (1560-1628): Pavan (c.1590) and Galliard (c.1609)
JUDITH WEIR (b. 1954): The Art of Touching The Piano (1983)
intermission
CHARLES E. IVES (1874-1954): 
The St. Gaudens (Black March) (1914)
The Celestial Railroad, Phantasy for Piano (1925)
Study No. 20: March (1919)
March No. 6 with "Here's to Good Old Yale"(1896)

About the program, Mr. Berman notes: "Loren Rush's Oh, Susanna (1972) opens the program with a seemingly free atonal modernistic setting that pulls the pianist into the memory of a reknowned Mozart wedding march. Mozart's Sonata in F Major K.332 is a collision of pastoral dances with remembered marches, dramatic opera tropes with syncopated musettes and ecclesiastic chorales. The British works on the program speak to the humor present in the works of Ives and Mozart. Peter Philips' Pavan and Galliard are quirky courtly dances, some of the earliest printed keyboard music. Judith Weir's The Art of Touching the Piano (1983) is a catalogue of piano tropes. Launched by the kind of exercise one might find in a pedagogic primer for pianists, the simplest of repetitions sorts itself wittily via baroque flourishes, soft-shoe roulades, and romantic expressivity. Though from distinct collections of pieces, all of the Ives works from the early 1900s invoke marches in one way or another. The piano version of St. Gaudens, which Ives referred to as his 'Black March,' solemnly evokes Colonel Shaw's regiment, lost in Civil War battle. Celestial Railroad is a fantasy, a 'pilgrims progress' of sorts, that moves swiftly through lurching hymns and remembered tunes before reaching its apex in David Wallace Reeves's Second Regiment Connecticut National Guard March. Study No. 20 is a rigorous mash-up of march tunes, an etude of polyrhythms and chordal processions moving forward and in reverse, sometimes simultaneously. Finally, March no. 6, Here's to Good Old Yale, is representative of Ives's youthful yet innovative college Marches."

On Thursday, 9 June 2016, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival will present Donald Berman and the Borromeo String Quartet in the world premiere of a piano quintet written for him by eminent American composer Elena Ruehr. Mr. Berman: "Elena Ruehr's premiere uses T.S. Eliot's fourth Prelude as its impetus. The first movement, The Worlds Revolve, has a melody that mimics the rhythm of the first stanza and evokes an ancient tune. Like Ancient Women uses block chords to create a quiet grandeur. Gathering Fuel is a virtuosic flurry, and In Vacant Lots evokes an ancient city, now empty." The concert will take place at 8 pm at theShalin Liu Performance Center: 37 Main St., Rockport, MA 01966 / 978-546-7391 / Donald Berman at Rockport. Tickets for this event range from $47-$65.

Mr.Berman will celebrate the release of his new album of solo piano works, SCOTT WHEELER: PORTRAITS & TRIBUTES with a CD release party and performance open to the public at National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Wednesday , 15 June, at 

***7:00 pm. 

The ***program :

MARTIN BOYKAN (b. 1931): Usurpations: Five Bagatelles for Piano (1997), excerpts

JOHN HARBISON (b. 1938): Montale Sketches for Piano (2001), excerpt

SCOTT WHEELER (b. 1952): Morningside (2007) / By the Sea (2013) / To His Music (1999)
FERN R LOPEZ: Portraits: The Piano Music of Scott Wheeler A film (excerpt)
SCOTT WHEELER: Cowley Meditation (2009) / Midnight Bells (1998)
NOEL COWARD (1899-1973): If Love Were All (w/mezzo-soprano Krista River)
SCOTT WHEELER: Lullaby from Singing to Sleep (1984) (w/Krista River) 

ALEXEI HAIEFF (1914-1994): Four Jukebox Pieces (1952), excerpts
SCOTT WHEELER: Shimmer (1998) / Bleecker Study (2012) / Portrait of Steve (2013)

Mr. Berman: "Selections from Scott Wheeler's  Portraits and Tributes on this ***concert program are nestled among character pieces by American composers Martin Boykan , John Harbison , and Alexei Haieff .  In a nod to Wheeler's background in musical theater, mezzo-soprano  Krista River presents a song by Noel Coward alongside Wheeler's lovely

Lullaby from Singing to Sleep.  The evening will also feature an excerpt from Fern R Lopez's film Portraits: The Piano Music of Scott Wheeler." This will be Mr. Berman's first appearance at National Sawdust, a hip new venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn devoted to showcasing the work of living composers. NationalSawdust: 80 N. 6th St., Brooklyn NY 11249 / 646-779-8455 /  Scott Wheeler & Donald Berman @ National Sawdust    *** Tickets  for this event are $25 in advance / $30 at door . 

Notable items on Mr. Berman's agenda in the coming months include preparing a new program of Italian Modernists with Susan Narucki, his frequent recital partner; inaugurating two new courses at Longy School, Improvisation for Classical Performers and Politics and Music; commissioning new solo works for 2016-2017 by Scott Lindroth and Dániel Péter Biró; editing the recording of Christopher Theofanidis' new piano quintet he recently made with the Henschel Quartet; and promoting the second and third volumes of the complete short works for piano of Charles Ives, which he edited for Peermusic: Volume 2: Piano Studies, Summer 2016, and AMP/G.Schirmer: Volume 3: Miscellaneous works, 2017.

Donald Berman has been on the frontlines of new music scholarship, performance and recording for over 30 years. A pianist and scholar of exceptional gifts, 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,  and Vice-president/Treasurer of the Charles Ives Society. 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, Rieger, Kagel 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. As General Editor of the 3-volume Charles E. Ives: Shorter Works for Piano , Mr. Berman has collaborated with two different publishers to issue a new edition of these important works. The first volume - Piano Marches  - was issued in 2015 by Peermusic. As referenced above, Volume 2 is also published by Peermusic (2016), and Volume 3 by AMP/Schirmer (2017). From 1998-2008 Mr. Berman curated 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). Aside from the Wheeler and Theofanidis recordings, Mr. Berman's most recent CD, of piano works by Martin Boykan (BRIDGE 9434), was called a "wonderful recording" by the New York Times , and was included on the Boston Globe 's "Best of Boston" list. Another recent project is a recording of George Perle's Serenade for Piano & Orchestra with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, for release on BMOP Sound. Mr. Berman's other recordings can be found on Accurate, ARSIS Audio, Bridge, CRI, Capstone, Centaur, Koch, Naxos, New World, and Newport Classics.

Mr. Berman is based in Cambridge, MA, where he lives with his wife and two children.

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For more information about Donald Berman, visit kathrynkingmedia.com, donaldbermanpiano.com and call 831-620-1332.