The year 2020 is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven—a composer whose music changed history, and influences and inspires musicians worldwide to this day.
Pianos have changed dramatically since Beethoven’s time. Mills College presents a recital of his piano music, played on a rare piano built in Beethoven’s Vienna during his lifetime. This magnificent instrument reveals the music’s brilliance, exuberance and wit, and brings to life the extraordinary colors and effects that dazzled Beethoven’s first audiences.
The piano used in this performance was built in Beethoven’s Vienna, c1806-10, just a few years after the composition of the music on this program. It was made by master-builder Johann Fritz, who after years of apprenticeship opened his own workshop in 1806.
Brian Connelly Biography
Pianist Brian Connelly’s performances span an unusually broad range of historical and modern repertoires. Born in Detroit, he studied at the University of Michigan, where his teachers included famed Bartok protégé Gyorgy Sandor and American virtuoso Theodore Lettvin.
Known for his affinity for the music of French modernist Olivier Messiaen, Connelly has performed the complete Twenty Contemplations of the Infant Jesus throughout the U.S. He has also performed Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, Visions of the Amen for two pianos, all of the songs cycles with sopranos Carmen Pelton and Lucy Shelton, the chamber orchestra work Exotic Birds, the Three Small Liturgies for solo piano, orchestra and chorus with conductor Donald Runnicles, and the three-and-a-half hour cycle, Catalogue of Birds.
He is also respected as a scholar and performer of historical instruments, appearing in the U.S. and Europe on 18th- and 19th-century pianos by Walther, Rosenberger, Graf, Pleyel, Bösendorfer, and Streicher. He has partnered with many of Europe’s finest early-music stars such as flutist Ildikó Kertész, clarinetist Lorenzo Coppola, cellist Roel Dieltiens, and bass Michael Schopper.
Connelly is the director of Context, an ensemble devoted to the performance of a wide range of chamber music on historical instruments appropriate for each era. Founded in 1995, Context has presented over 150 programs and is currently in its 25th season.
Connelly has partnered in recital with many renowned soloists, including violinists Sergiu Luca, Stephanie Chase, Leonidas Kavakos, and Cho-Liang Lin; violist Nobuko Imai; cellists Michael Kannen, Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Lynn Harrell, and Gary Hoffman; pianists William Bolcom, William Albright, Jeremy Denk, Jason Hardink, and Robert Levin; harpsichordist John Gibbons; clarinetists Richie Hawley and Charles Neidich; flutist Carol Wincenc; classical saxophonist Laura Hunter; baritone William Sharp. He has premiered works by a host of composers including William Albright, Karim Al-Zand, Derek Bermel, William Bolcom, Paul Cooper, David Diamond, Ross Lee Finney, Gabriella Frank, Pierre Jalbert, and many others.
Connelly teaches solo piano performance and chamber music at the renowned Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. His former piano students include active soloists, chamber-ensemble founders and players, avant-garde music performers, university educators, conductors, and composers, and many hold piano positions with major orchestras.