Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco
Music@Menlo's Winter Series — the summer festival's year-around extension — is offering an exciting event in the Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton on Feb. 9. "Pianists in Paris" features four acclaimed artists: festival artistic co-director Wu Han, Anne-Marie McDermott, and two illustrious pianists new to Music@Menlo, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Soyeon Kate Lee.
The program features four-hand and two-piano performances of works by Debussy and Bizet, concluding with Gershwin's An American in Paris in the composer’s arrangement for two pianos.
The Debussy works are Nocturnes for Two Pianos (arranged by Ravel), Petite Suite for Piano, Four Hands, and Jeux for Two Pianos (arranged by Bavouzet). Bizet is represented by Jeux d’enfants for Piano, Four Hands.
Bavouzet made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2012 as the soloist in Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3, under the baton of Vasily Petrenko. The French pianist seems to have a special affinity for Hungarians, having been mentored by both György Cziffra and Georg Solti, and recording all three Bartók concertos with Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic.
Lee too has made previous Bay Area appearances, beginning as a Naumberg winner with San Francisco Performances. She will give a recital in May at the Steinway Society Series in Le Petit Trianon.