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06/24 Saturday
1:00 PM "Classical Appetizer series"
Miyuki Otani
1:00 PM Miyuki Otani Classical Appetizer
Program
Kinderszenen, Op. 15 (Scenes from the Childhood) ------------ Schumann
Concert Etude No. 2 ------------- Liszt
Excursions ------------- Barber
3 Preludes ------------ Gershwin
Biography
The Melrose Free Press wrote after Miyuki Otani’s performance as soloist with the Melrose Symphony that she “…has a marvelous facility…dazzling in its clarity and delicacy.” Audiences and critics alike have hailed her performances for their great “musicality, feeling, and unflagging technique.”
As a winner of the Boston Conservatory’s Concerto Competition, she performed as a soloist with the Boston Conservatory Orchestra at Faneuil Hall. Ms. Otani has also appeared as soloist with the Cape Ann Symphony playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto
No 23, Melrose Symphony Orchestra performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and Quincy Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.
Ms. Otani was invited by the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series to give a recital in Chicago in August 2004, where it was broadcast live on WFMT Radio and on Cable 25, the Pulse of Chicago. In the Fall of 2003, Ms. Otani was invited by the Fukui Classical Music Association to give a concert at Kazenomori Hall. In addition, the Kobe Women’s College invited her to serve as a guest lecturer. In June 2001, Ms. Otani gave a recital at Harmony Hall in Fukui, Japan at which both the Governor and the Mayor were in attendance.
Born in Japan, Miyuki Otani began playing the piano at the age of three. Ms. Otani is a graduate of the prestigious Tokyo Women’s Christian University where she received a degree in English and American Literature. In 1996, Ms. Otani came to the United States as a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar to study at Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ms. Otani earned her Master of Music degree at the Boston Conservatory where she studied with Jonathan Bass.
Currently, Ms. Otani serves on the piano faculty of Brookline Music School. She is also an active chamber musician and plays in the Brookline Music School Faculty Trio. Upcoming engagements include recitals at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge, MA, and at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, IL.
Contact: Ai Isshiki 617-780-4292 / zeitgeistca@mac.com
3:00 PM Yoko Gillman's Classical series
This is a concert of piano and voice students,
ages 5-adult. It runs from 4-5 pm. The concert is
free and everyone is welcome.
10:00 PM BEIRUT
$10 donation
the critique of pure reason presents
Beirut
with special guests
Advance tickets available (cash only!) at twisted village.
...These songs come from a 19-year-old multi-instrumentalist from
Albuquerque named Zach Condon.... Condon's baritone voice is
beautiful, delivered with the kind of world weariness that you don't
expect a teenager to feel, let alone convey with such honesty. His
melodies are a perfect match for the old Balkan-inspired arrangements;
there's no shortage of ukuleles and mandolins, not to mention pianos,
accordions, violins and marching band-styled percussion. I guess it
shouldn't be a surprise that Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeremy Barnes (who
also plays in A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Heather Trost (also of A Hawk
and a Hacksaw) are among the guest musicians. But this album is
clearly Condon's baby, inspired from his earlier travels through
Europe. It's not actually until more than halfway through the record
that you really detect any modern influences; the toy synthesizer
percolating underneath his deep waver in "Scenic Word" will make the
ears of any Magnetic Fields fan perk up.
It's been eight years since Mangum brought us Neutral Milk Hotel's
swan song, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and then subsequently went
into hiding. Though Condon eschews Mangum's fuzzy folk and surreal
imagery for the somber sounds of the former Eastern bloc, I can't help
but listen to Gulag Orkestar and not be reminded of the first time I
heard those shambolic horns and felt that indescribable yearning
emotion in Neutral Milk's opus. Beirut's debut is obviously no means
its sequel, but it's the closest thing that we may ever get. [GH:
Other Music]