Internationally Renowned Pianist Opens 2010 Wassermann Festival at USU

Stephen Hough, a pianist acclaimed worldwide, opens the 2010 Wassermann Festival at Utah State University with a solo recital Thursday, Feb. 11, at USU’s Performance Hall. Concert time is 7:30 p.m.

 

Tickets for the event are available at the Caine School of the Arts Box Office, located in the Chase Fine Arts Center, FAC 139-B on the USU campus; online or call 435-797-8022. Adult reserved seats are $20 and student tickets, available to all students — not just USU students, are $8.

 

The Wassermann Festival is presented by the Department of Music in the Caine School of the Arts, and is directed by faculty member Dennis Hirst. Concerts and master classes form the festival, with offerings presented over a two-month period, February-March.

 

Praise for Hough’s playing abounds, and can be summarized by Great Britain’s The Guardian when it said, “The most perfect piano playing conceivable.”

 

This is Hough’s second appearance with the Wassermann Festival, a rare occurrence. He first appeared in 2008, and the festival’s director brought him back both as an audience favorite and for his broad range of artistic expression.

 

“Stephen Hough is a musician, a composer, a writer for newspapers, magazines and books,” Hirst said. “He blogs, he is a painter and has won awards as a poet. He’s a modern renaissance man.”

 

Indeed, in recognition of his many achievements, he was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2001, joining prominent scientists, writers and others who have made unique contributions to contemporary life.

 

In Logan, Hough plans a program that includes selections by J.S. Bach, Gabriel Faure, Cesar Frank and Frederic Chopin.

 

Program notes for the evening include a description by Hough himself.

 

“This recital is about counterpoint: not so much within the pieces (despite the two fugues) but between the pieces,” he writes. “There are two main themes which both hold everything together and which create friction — after all, counter-point suggests opposition as well as the delight and ingenuity of musical jigsaw.”

 

During the program at USU, Hirst is especially interested in hearing the program opener, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach, arranged by Cortot and Hough.

 

“Bach didn’t write for the piano, or what we know today as the piano,” Hirst said. “He wrote for the keyboard instruments of his day. Cortot took Bach’s original score and arranged it for the piano in a manner he thought appropriate. Now, we have Stephen Hough’s interpretation, or take on that. We will hear his version of what Cortot did on top of what Bach originally wrote. I’m excited to hear his creativity. The audience will get three-for-one — Bach, Cortot and Hough.”

 

Hirst also noted that the entire second half of the program features works of Frederic Chopin — a tribute to the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth.

 

For information on the 2010 Wassermann Festival, visit the festival Web site or contact Hirst at (435) 797-3257, Dennis.Hirst@usu.edu.

 

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Writer: Patrick Williams, 435-797-1354, patrick.williams@usu.edu

Contact: Contact: Dennis Hirst, 435-797-3257, Dennis.Hirst@usu.edu