Bertrand Chamayou

Critics are raving about Bertrand Chamayou's piano playing. His programming has been called original and searching, his playing dynamic, technically perfect, and breathtakingly beautiful. Songs without words is the guiding theme of this concert, as the entire repertoire is related to songs that have inspired composers. Mendelssohn's short lyrical pieces, Songs Without Words, are a fitting beginning to this journey. They are accompanied by music that rhymes with Mendelssohn's gentle and intimate songs, including Charles Ives' Song Without (Good) Words, Schumann's "Dedication," and Kurtág's dreamy retelling of a forgotten Romanian Christmas carol.

George Crumb's interpretation of Thelonious Monk's classic opus 'Round Midnight, in Eine kleine Mitternachtmusik and Takemitsu's free-form arrangement of the Beatles' Golden Slumbers take us to exotic places. The concert concludes with the magnificent Wanderer Fantasy by Franz Schubert, where each of the four movements begins with a variation on the composer's song of the same name.